A Bit Of Both
by bowtruckles
Summary: Romione drabbles based on four word prompts from Tumblr (and probably in the future, some inspired from other things). Each chapter can stand alone, some are funny, some angsty, some sweet. Canon-compliant.
1. Is That My Shirt?

**A/N: So, there was this list of four-word prompts going around on Tumblr and a few lovely souls actually sent in some! So I've decided to post them here. The chapter title will contain the prompt phrase. P.S. I can be found on Tumblr at remedial-potions. Enjoy!**

 **Disclaimer: I wish I owned Harry Potter. But I don't.**

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 **Is That My Shirt?**

She'd been in the bathroom for a while. Too long, really, for Ron's taste, not that he had any right to have any sort of opinion about anything she did. He was content to wait, anyway, just to make sure she was okay - Fleur had offered to help her take a bath but Hermione, ever modest and nothing if not independent, had declined. And so Ron was waiting, patiently for once, just so he could lay eyes on her again and remind himself that she was alive, and she was okay, and even if he'd felt completely useless down there in that cellar, in the end he had been able to at least do something to ensure her safety.

He'd have been willing to help her take the bath too, of course, but seeing as he was just grateful she was on friendly terms with him again… he'd thought he'd better not suggest it, not even in jest.

Sliding down the wall opposite the bathroom door, he rested his forearms on his knees and twirled Wormtail's wand, which felt dirty and tainted, between his fingers. The rushing of water through pipes had abated long ago, and now all he heard was the occasional light splashing sound. Desperately, attempting to be a gentleman, he tried not to picture what was going on behind that door. He was sitting here because she was his best friend and she'd nearly just died and he wanted to be there for her in whatever way he could. This was no time to be picturing soap bubbles on her skin-

"Hi," said a small voice from across the hall. Hermione stood before him, her bare feet sinking into the well-worn carpet, once again wearing the dressing gown that Fleur lent to her. Her hair, still damp, hung in thick, heavy ringlets on her shoulders.

"Hey," Ron replied, scrambling to his feet. "Everything okay?"

"Yes," she said firmly back, though a weak smile played on her lips. "You didn't have to wait for me, I'm all right."

"Well, I just-" And then he noticed it, the small swatch of orange cotton covering her collarbone, peeking out between the crimson satin of the gown. "Is that my shirt?"

"Oh - well…" Hermione's face flushed, blotches of pink staining her cheeks. "Yes."

"You're wearing a Cannons shirt?" Ron asked before he could help himself, his eyes shining as he gazed at her.

"Yes," Hermione admitted, shy and sheepish. Her fingers, still bearing scrapes and bruises from the recent ordeal, shifted the gown away to reveal two interlocking black Cs on the front of the shirt. "It's just - it was the first clean thing I could find in my bag and - and I can change if you want, it's just really soft and-"

"No, no, don't," he rushed to tell her. "Keep it if you want, it's yours, it's fine."

Her teeth sank into the inside of her lower lip as they regarded each other. Ron felt he might implode at any moment. She was wearing his clothes for Merlin's sake, like they were a real couple, like they'd woken up together on a weekend morning and were about to fix breakfast. Of course, the reality they were living was horribly different than the silly little fantasy he had just invented… but maybe someday, if this war ever ended, they could have it.

"Okay," she relented, that little grin still on her lips as she hitched the dressing gown back into place. "Thanks."

"Yeah." Ron gave her a smile of his own. "Anything for you."

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	2. I'm Not Even Sorry

**D** **isclaimer: I own nothing, you know that.**

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 **I'm Not Even Sorry**

The sun was bright and bold, streaming through the curtains as though they weren't there at all, as Hermione felt herself entering the hazy purgatory between sleep and wakefulness. Draped over her torso was a scarred, freckled forearm, and for a second she let herself snuggle back against the man to whom it belonged. The comforter over their bodies was soft and warm as he hugged her closer, kissing the nape of her neck. If only the sunlight wasn't glaring in her eyes, they could stay like this indefinitely…

But wait. Why, exactly, was it so bright already? Her alarm was set for half past five, at which time the sun was usually just peeking up over the horizon. Hermione, cracking open her eyes, fumbled for Ron's watch on the nightstand and attempted to discern the time.

And then her heart leapt out of her chest. _Half past ten_?! It couldn't be, it couldn't possibly be, because that would mean she was terribly late for work, and the reports piled high in her inbox weren't going to read themselves. She sat upright, horrified, only to find that Ron was pulling her gently back down to the mattress.

"I have to go to work, Ron!" she yelped, making to vacate the bed but stopped by his strong embrace yet again. "What are you doing?"

"You've been excused from work today," he said as calmly as if he were discussing the weather. "I turned off your alarm and sent Pig with a letter a few hours ago. You're taking the day off."

Hermione sat up and goggled at him. How could he be so cavalier about this?

"Why would you do that?!" she asked desperately. "I have so much work to do, I can't believe you would just-"

"Hermione," he interrupted, propping himself up on his elbows. "You've been working fourteen-hour days for weeks, you've barely been eating or sleeping, you're obviously exhausted-"

"Still, you had no right-"

"I'm not even sorry," he stated, quite matter-of-fact about the whole thing. "I won't watch you do this to yourself again."

She felt she should have been furious, but hadn't she just, moments ago, been wishing that she could spend her day nestled into his arms? And she did feel quite refreshed; it had felt so good to have a lie-in.

"What's the worst that happens?" he added gently. "They're not going to fire you. Nobody in their right mind would fire you. And it's been ages since we spent a whole day together…"

"You're not going to work either?"

"Nope."

The sun glinted on his fiery hair, picking up golden highlights in the strands, as Hermione allowed her eyes to travel over him. He was, she knew, just trying to save her from herself.

He was also lacking a shirt at the moment…

"Okay," Hermione assented, lying back down beside him. "It'll be nice to have a day to ourselves."

His grin was triumphant as he turned onto his side to face her.

"It will." Their lips met, and before she knew it, Hermione was pulling him on top of her. "And I can think of a few ways to, ahem, _relax_ …"

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	3. Hey, I Said Stop!

**Disclaimer: Belongs to JKR, not me.**

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 **Hey, I Said Stop!**

He'd praised himself on the idea to go swimming almost immediately. It was just the two of them - Ginny was up in her room writing a terribly long letter to Dean Thomas and Harry wasn't arriving until tomorrow - and Ron quite liked having Hermione all to himself. Sure, his throat had gone a bit dry when he first saw her in her swimsuit, since it was rather more revealing than her Hogwarts robes, but he'd managed to recover from that and now it was just… nice. To be with her, to goof off in the pond behind the Burrow, and for once let themselves be the sixteen-year-olds that they were.

She was gathering her hair away from her neck, face tilted toward the July sun, as he snuck up behind her. For a moment he was distracted by her fingers wringing pond water out of his hair, but then he came to himself again and used one large hand to splash a wall of water onto her shoulders. Instantly she spun around, doing her best to look affronted even as she bit back laughter.

"That's so rude, Ron," she scolded him as the corners of her mouth twitched. "My back was turned, that's not fair."

"Yeah?" he smirked. "Well, as you're facing this way now…"

Closing his fists tightly just under the surface of the water, he sent forceful jets of water directly into her face. She released a laughing shriek and backed away, attempting to splash him as she went.

"Stop!" she squealed, squeezing her eyes shut against the onslaught of water. She was still laughing, though, so he kept going, chasing her to the edge of the pond. "Hey, I said stop!"

Just as she spoke, he inadvertently fired another stream of water directly into her open mouth.

Pushing her hair out of her eyes, Hermione spat out her mouthful and glared at him. Ron, with a fist held up to his mouth, stifled a laugh. The problem, as he saw it, was that even when she was angry, he found her adorable.

"Sorry," he chuckled, sloshing toward her. "I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to-" And then, before he could overthink it or stop himself he was hugging her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders, her hair under his fingers.

Immediately Ron became brutally aware of just how much of their skin was touching and how he could still detect the scent of her hair through the pond water and how, most miraculously, she was hugging him back. _She was hugging him back_.

"Sorry," he muttered again. "I wasn't… aiming, I promise."

"It's okay." Her breath was warm on his neck as she spoke, sending a shiver racing down his spine. The water around them suddenly felt very warm and Ron's lungs seemed to have ceased function and her fingertips still dug into his back-

"Ron!" His mum's voice, magically amplified, filled his ears and he jumped away from Hermione. "Lunch is ready, dear."

"Well, let's go," said Hermione, suddenly sensible.

Ron nodded, feeling the playful vibe of the morning slip irretrievably away from him, and turned to climb out of the pond. He had just taken a step when a massive wave poured over his back, shocking him into a sort of paralysis.

Behind him sounded satisfied laughter, and he peered over his shoulder to see Hermione, knee-deep in the pond, hands on her hips, wearing the biggest grin he'd ever seen.

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	4. I Believe In You

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. At all.**

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 **I Believe In You**

It was so simple, so obvious, and yet so brilliant. How had they not thought of it before? The exact thing they needed had been inside the castle all along, but then, as they sprinted toward Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, broomsticks in tow, Hermione could not help remembering the main obstacle in Ron's otherwise inspired solution. There was a reason that the Chamber of Secrets had been so shrouded in mystery in so long, and it wasn't just because of the murderous beast that had lurked within. One needed to be a Parselmouth to open the entrance, and the first Hogwarts had seen in fifty years was otherwise occupied.

"Ron," Hermione gasped as they skidded around the corner to the bathroom. "This was a great idea, truly, but how do you suppose we'll actually get in there?"

"Parseltongue," Ron stated, yanking open the door. The bathroom was just as it had always been, dark and dirty and sufficiently creepy. "I was here when Harry did it the last time, and then, the locket-" Discomfort flickered over his face. "I reckon I can do it. It's worth a go, anyway."

"Okay," she agreed at once. There was no time for deliberating, and the last thing she wanted to do was kill his confidence.

Ron stepped up to the sink bearing a small, crude engraving of a snake and drew a breath, concentrating as though this was Transfiguration class. Squeezing his eyes shut, he released a snarling, hissing sort of sound and then looked expectantly at the sink.

It didn't move.

"It's fine, just try again," Hermione assured him, patting his shoulder. "I'm sure you can do it."

He swallowed and nodded, fixing his gaze determinedly on the image of the snake, blue eyes dark with concentration. As Hermione watched, he emitted a new combination of hissing, spitting noises, ones that seemed to issue from the back of his throat. Still, the sink stayed put.

"Dammit," he muttered, shaking his head. "I really thought - okay, one more try."

As he steeled himself for a third attempt, Hermione remembered Quidditch, and the way his self-esteem would plummet after just one failed save. When Ron believed in himself, he could do anything he wanted. She knew he was brilliant, he just had to understand it for himself.

But he may as well have been speaking Mermish for all the effect it had on the sink, and Ron cursed under his breath in aggravation.

"We need Harry for this," he stated in resignation. "Stay right here and I'll run and see if I can find him-"

"No, we don't, I think you were really close."

"Really?" asked Ron skeptically. "How could you tell, exactly?"

I'm sure you'll get there," Hermione continued. "It took Harry a few tries at first, right, so-"

"Harry," Ron interrupted, "is an _actual_ Parselmouth, I'm just some prat hissing at a sink."

"You're not, I promise you're not." But of course he wasn't convinced, so Hermione positioned herself in front of him, placing a hand on his arm. "You wouldn't have come here in the first place if you didn't think you could do it and I know you can do it or I wouldn't have come with, right?"

"But we're wasting time, maybe if we-"

"Ron," Hermione said firmly, looking directly into his eyes. "I believe in you. You've got this."

There was a pause in which the significance of her words seemed to hang in the air between them, and then Ron gave a determined nod.

"Let's do this."

Clearing his throat, he stared down once again at the silver tap and began to hiss again, lips curling, brows furrowed, and Hermione held her breath. A beat passed, and then, with a great groan, the sink sprang to life and revealed a massive pipe, large enough for them both to slide down.

Ron's jaw nearly hit the floor as he turned to gape at Hermione in shock. Dropping her broomstick, she flung her arms around him as he laughed in her ear and hugged her tightly back.

"You," Hermione said as she leaned away, her admiration for him glowing on her face, "are amazing. _Amazing_."

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	5. You Don't Want Me

**Disclaimer: HP is not mine!**

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 **You Don't Want Me**

Ron had been hiding out in the shed a lot lately - the whole past week, actually. Anytime Hermione had gone looking for him, which was often, she found him organizing his dad's collection of dead batteries and spark plugs or tidying the shelf full of burnt-out toasters. And today he was there again, still in his dress robes, playing idly with an old rotary phone.

"Thought you'd be here," Hermione said as she walked in, attempting to send a friendly smile his way.

He shrugged, twirling the telephone cord around his finger.

It had only been a week, Hermione reminded herself. Just because it had been the longest week of her life, filled with mourning and rebuilding and (though it felt a bit trivial sometimes) reliving the memory of that brilliant, solitary kiss with Ron, didn't mean that the wounds weren't still fresh. She couldn't expect Ron to snap back into his old self so quickly, but it still pained her to see him like this.

"I sort of wanted to talk to you about something," Hermione began, making her way to him.

"I don't want to go inside, all right? I can't deal with it."

"No, it's not that." She didn't fancy spending much more time with the lingering funeral guests either. "Erm… I need to go to Australia soon. To find my parents and put their memories back."

"Oh." The plastic phone receiver fell from his hands with a clatter. "Right, of course. Well, I'm sure my dad knows someone at the Ministry who can set up a Portkey for you-"

"I don't need help with that," she replied. "Ron, I - I want you to come with me."

But rather than heartily accept her invitation, as she'd been sure he would, Ron just studied her as though he hadn't understood her words at all.

"No," he said with a shake of his head, making her stomach plummet into her knees. "You don't."

"What are you talking about? I wouldn't have just asked you if I didn't."

"You don't want me," he muttered in resignation. "Believe me, you don't."

For one wild moment, Hermione's eyes flitted to his neck to see if she could detect the golden chain of that horrible locket, as she had done so many times that fall, before remembering that he'd demolished the thing himself months ago. So why, then, was he acting like someone was whispering all of his worst insecurities into his ear?

"I'm the guy who left," he continued, his voice thick, eyes cast down to the dusty wooden table. "I'm the guy who was stuck in a bloody cellar while you were - and I know you only kissed me that time because you thought we'd be dead by dawn-"

"No, you don't know that," Hermione retorted, perhaps a bit forcefully. "Don't tell me what I think or what I want, because you're way off base."

Ron lifted his eyes to meet hers. "What?"

"You came back," she continued, her voice now gentle. "And you saved me, and…" It was time, Hermione decided, to lay it all out on the line. She was done now with the sidelong glances, the one-armed hugs, the occasional hand-holding. "And I do want you. More than that, I need you."

Ron, at a loss for words, simply gazed at her, seeming torn between disbelief and joy.

"And you've got to come to Australia," Hermione concluded with a definitive nod, "because I can't do it without you."

"Well, I'm sure you _could_ -"

"Ron!" she cried in exasperation. "Will you go with me or not?"

His face cracked into a smile, his first in days, as he took a step and pulled her into his arms. As she hugged him tightly she felt him release a massive, quaking breath.

"Of course I will," he sighed. "Of course. Only…"

"What?" Reluctantly, Hermione loosened her grip so she could look up at him.

"Well - is it okay if I kiss you?" he asked in a rush. "Because you started it last time…"

It took all of her willpower not to rise on tiptoe and press her lips to his, but she resisted, instead beaming at him as her heart pounded with anticipation.

"I don't know what's taking you so long."

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	6. You're A Terrible Cook

**Disclaimer: I of course don't own Ron or Hermione or anything else that JK Rowling owns.**

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Hermione was just setting the food onto two plates when the fireplace roared, alerting her to Ron's arrival. She froze, feeling her stomach flip anxiously, as she scooped out the last of the peas and admired her handiwork. The pork chops were crispy, the mashed potatoes loaded with butter and cream, the peas a verdant green. It had been a bit of a struggle, trying to cook a full meal like this from scratch, especially without using magic, but Hermione felt confident that her hard work would pay off.

"Come in here," she called, listening to his footsteps in the hallway. "Dinner's ready."

His cloak still on his shoulders, he peeked into the kitchen with an air of mild curiosity.

"You've… cooked?"

Hermione bristled at his surprised tone. She was no Molly Weasley, it was true, but they didn't survive solely on takeaway. "Yes, I've cooked, it isn't rocket science. Now come on, sit down, I don't want it to get cold."

Ron shed his cloak and shoes and allowed himself to be ushered to the table, where he was served a plate along with a glass of wine.

"What's this all about?" asked Ron as Hermione sat down across from him.

"Well, you've been promoted from a trainee to a full-fledged Auror and I just thought we should celebrate a bit," she said. "I'm really proud of you, I thought I'd do something special."

"Oh." Ron gave her a soft smile and picked up her hand, kissing her knuckles. "I - thanks, love. Everything looks great."

So they tucked in. Hermione didn't often eat pork chops but she knew Ron loved them so she'd gone out on a limb a bit, yet she couldn't help but wonder vaguely in the back of her mind if they were always so difficult to it through, let alone chew. And what had happened to all of the spices she had used? All she could taste was tough, dry meat.

On the other side of the table, Ron was chewing an enormous mouthful of potatoes. Hastily he gulped it down, following it up with a swig of wine. Hopefully his pork chop had turned out better than hers - he'd taken a couple bites of his but seemed to have moved on to the vegetables. Noticing her observing him, he curled his lips into some semblance of a smile and drank a bit more wine.

Hermione started to sweat. He hated it all, didn't he? So perhaps she didn't quite have the skill of a house elf at Hogwarts, but she couldn't possibly have gone wrong with her side dishes, right? There was certainly no screwing up such simple items. She sampled a forkful of the peas, only to discover with absolute horror that they crunched - the centers of the little green spheres were still frozen solid.

"Ron?" she said tentatively as he returned his attention dutifully to his food. "Is everything okay? You're not usually this quiet."

"Mhmm," he nodded rapidly, his eyes wide in his overeagerness to reassure her. "Yeah, everything's - yeah. Let's have more wine."

He used his wand to summon the bottle and refill their glasses. Hermione drank from her glass as Ron scooped up a bite of mashed potatoes, which dripped sadly between the tines of his fork on their way to his mouth. How was that even possible? She hadn't used that much cream, had she? If Ron was fazed by this, he didn't show it, instead just stirring the potatoes and making another attempt.

"Ron," Hermione said, placing a hand on his arm. "You can say it. I'm a terrible cook."

His entire body seemed to relax at her words as he burst out laughing.

"You're a terrible cook," he agreed, though there was an incredible tenderness lacing his voice as he leaned across the table and kissed her.

"You were really going to eat all that?" Hermione asked in awe. His stomach was basically a bottomless pit, she'd known that for years, but everyone had limits.

"Yeah, you were so excited, I wasn't gonna hurt your feelings." He sat back down in his chair and picked up his glass of wine. "But I didn't know peas could go all cold in the middle like that, is that a spell, or-?"

Hermione dissolved into laughter, her face behind her hands, as Ron drank his wine and watched her. There was no harm done, really; this was just one of the things, like flying and chess, at which she didn't excel, and she could live with that.

I think we can still salvage the night," Hermione declared when she had calmed a bit. "How would it be if we ordered a pizza?"

Ron grinned. "Brilliant, you are."

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	7. Who Were You With?

**Disclaimer: This may shock you but I'm not JK Rowling and I only own the goofy plot to this, not the characters.**

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 **Who Were You With?**

 _Be cool_ , Ron told himself as he walked through the door on Friday evening. The afternoon had gone well, exactly as he'd hoped, in fact, and so he greeted Hermione happily with a kiss on the lips and flopped down onto the sofa beside her. She closed the book in her lap and shifted around to face him, appearing puzzled.

"You're back late," she commented. "Hasn't the shop been closed for a few hours now?"

Her tone wasn't suspicious, just curious, but Ron still had to focus all of his energy into staying casual.

"Yeah, I went out for a drink." It was true, he reminded himself, even if he was failing to mention that he actually hadn't gone in to the shop at all that day.

"Oh, really? Who were you with?"

"Harry."

"Huh." Hermione pursed her lips and regarded him curiously. "That's very interesting, because Harry Floo-called here about an hour ago looking for you."

 _Shit. Shit shit shit._ "Well, Harry left before I did, and then I was just hanging out with George."

He fully hated spinning this little web of lies - he was always honest with Hermione, always - but it was necessary in this case, and it would pay off soon enough.

Unfortunately, Hermione looked thoroughly unconvinced.

"What aren't you telling me?" she asked warily, inching away from him and making his heart sink.

"Nothing, I was just with Harry-"

"I just talked to him and he didn't mention a thing about seeing you, so why are you lying to me?" she demanded to know, jumping up from the sofa to stand over him.

"You really want to know?" Ron challenged, rising to his feet as well.

"So you admit it wasn't Harry!" she exclaimed, pointing an accusatory finger at him. "Honestly, Ron-"

"I was with your dad," he blurted out, stunning her into silence. He hated for the jig to be up like this, but it was better than her thinking he was being unfaithful to her.

"My dad?" This almost seemed to amuse her. "Why, do you need dental work done?"

"No, it's not a big deal, don't worry about it."

"Are you and my dad drinking buddies now?"

Ron scowled at how hilarious she found the concept - her parents had always seemed to like him well enough, and again, the afternoon in question couldn't have gone better.

"No, it's - do you really want to know?" he asked again, resigning himself to the fact that nothing really ever went according to plan when it came to him and Hermione.

"Yes!"

"I was asking him for his blessing to ask you to marry me," Ron declared, watching as her expression turned from exasperation to shock, "and I know you think that's old-fashioned and weird, but it's what my family does and I did it."

"And… what did he say?" she asked, her voice small and shaking.

"He was fine with it," said Ron. Actually, what Mr. Granger had said was that he couldn't have chosen a better husband for his daughter, but Ron felt he would keep that close to the vest for now. One shocking tidbit of news at a time, he reasoned.

The faintest hint of a smile was playing on Hermione's lips.

"Are you asking me to marry you?" She sounded incredulous, and yet pleased by the thought.

"Not yet," he replied casually. "But I will."

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	8. Don't Be F--king Rude

**A/N: I don't think you guys fully understand just how close I came to writing a drabble in which Ron watches the Kardashians in response to this prompt… but I have resisted. (I will still write that though if anyone wants me to, actually I'll probably write it just for fun.) Anyway here is the actual drabble…**

 **And please be warned that this chapter contains some bad language.**

 **Disclaimer: I wish I owned HP but I don't, and JKR could probably find my net worth between her couch cushions. We're not the same person.**

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 **Don't Be Fucking Rude**

To say the later stage of Hermione's pregnancy had taken its toll on her was putting it mildly. It wasn't helpful, either, that Ginny had been pregnant at the same time with her and Harry's second and took the whole thing in stride. Hermione's unborn daughter seemed to delight in wedging her little limbs between her ribs and jumping on her bladder in the middle of the night. At this point, Hermione just wanted to meet her own child already, but she still had four weeks left.

"Ginny had the baby," Ron announced on a rainy Sunday morning, walking into their bedroom and holding a folded bit of parchment in his hands. "It's a boy-"

"They knew it was going to be a boy," Hermione snapped. "Just like we know we're having a girl."

"Okay, right, just saying," Ron replied. "Anyway, if you'd like, we can go visit them this afternoon."

And Hermione did want to see her new nephew, so they made their way to the Potter residence shortly after lunchtime. Ginny, looking exhausted but happy, was sitting on the sofa with the swaddled newborn in her arms.

"Is it okay if I hold him?" asked Hermione, thinking she should become accustomed to handling a newborn.

"Of course," Ginny agreed. "Harry's just upstairs putting James down for a nap, he'll be down in a minute."

Carefully they transferred the infant into Hermione's embrace. He looked exactly like his father, right down to the vibrant green eyes.

"So, what's his name?" Ron asked, perching on the edge of the armchair where Hermione sat with the baby.

"Albus Severus," said Ginny.

And Hermione knew her husband well enough by now to know that every single muscle in his body had tensed up at this statement, but before anything could be said or done, baby Albus erupted into high-pitched wails.

"Oh, I bet he needs his nappy changed," Ginny reasoned, rising from her seat before Hermione could protest or offer to help. "We'll be right back."

She had barely left the room before Ron turned to Hermione in abject stupefaction.

"Albus Severus?" he repeated, looking downright anguished. "Albus… Severus?!"

"Hey," Hermione hissed under her breath. "Don't be fucking rude."

Ron's chin hit his chest. "You just said - oh, good thing there's no kids in this room-"

"I know what I said," Hermione continued sharply, wincing as her own daughter flipped over and lodged a foot against her stomach. "But it's their baby, they named him, it's done."

"Fine, fine, I won't say anything," Ron relented, resting a calming hand on her shoulder. "But I mean, c'mon, Severus?"

"I don't love it either," Hermione admitted. "But it's not our choice. And besides, how would you feel if people gave us a hard time about our baby's name?"

"That's different, we aren't naming our baby after a total-"

"Ron," Hermione interrupted him. "I know how you feel, believe me, but we have to just let it go."

They waited in a comfortable silence for Harry or Ginny to join them, Hermione with a hand on her swollen belly so she could feel the baby moving around.

"I still can't believe you said 'fuck'," Ron marveled after a moment. "What's gotten into you?"

"Your unborn child."

"Right."

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	9. You Love Me, Right?

Disclaimer: Harry Potter is not mine! And you already knew that!

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 **You Love Me, Right?**

The new house was perfect - exactly what they had wanted and completely picturesque. It had three bedrooms, a library (the biggest selling point if Hermione was being honest), and a huge garden with a white picket fence. When they had moved in, everything about it had been pristine and Hermione was determined to keep it that way. It was easy enough to keep a house clean with magic, anyway, but she still made sure to wipe down the counters, dust off the cupboards, even clean the windows most nights.

"Hermione?" came Ron's voice from the front hall. "Can you come here?"

Curious, Hermione set down the sponge and proceeded to the front of the house. Ron was poking his head through the door, wearing a vaguely apologetic smile.

"Wow, you look beautiful today," he remarked as she reached him. "Absolutely radiant."

Hermione glanced down at her sweatpants and then back up at Ron, who just kept smiling.

"What's going on?" she asked hesitantly. Normally when he came home from work, he bounded through the door and planted a huge kiss on her lips and started asking her about her day. He at least usually came all the way into the house.

"You love me, right?" he asked with what he clearly thought was a charming grin.

"Yes…"

"Unconditionally?"

"Yes… Ron, darling, I took all the same vows you did, remember?"

"I do," he agreed seriously, "and I also remember that it was the best day of my life, so-"

"Seriously, what's going on?"

"Nothing, nothing at all, just-"

But in that moment, a small whimper sounded from behind the door and Ron's face turned brick red.

"Ron… what was that?"

With an air of apprehension, he pushed the door all the way open to reveal a squirming terrier puppy nestled in the crook of his elbow. As Hermione stared at it, her eyes like saucers, it started licking Ron's forearm with a tiny pink tongue.

"Whose dog is that?" asked Hermione, quite sure she already knew the answer.

"I found him in the alley behind the shop," Ron explained, "and he was all alone and he was cold and he was starving and - and _look_ at him, Hermione, look at that face."

He held the puppy out at arms length as though to give her a better view, and though she wasn't quite ready to say it aloud, it was admittedly a very cute little thing.

"You sound like Hagrid," she said with mild disbelief. "Ron, everything in this house is brand new."

"As is this puppy," Ron countered. "And right now, yes, it's a brand new house, but y'know, a dog makes a house a home."

"When we moved in, you said shagging in every room of the house made it a home," Hermione reminded him. And okay, so she'd quite liked doing it in the library, but that was rather off the point at the moment…

"Well, yeah, that too," he smirked, tucking the puppy back under his arm. "Look, I couldn't just leave him. He's so little, he wouldn't have made it. He needs a family, just like - just like Harry needed a family-"

"Oh, for God's sake," Hermione groaned as Ron offered her a guilty smile. "You are shameless."

"I'm just saying, I think he needs us."

Ron shifted the puppy onto his chest, where it set about gnawing on the collar of his shirt. Hermione knew that if she asked him to take the puppy to a shelter, he would do it, and it would be adopted in a heartbeat, but she also knew that this event was not terribly out of character for the man she had married. He was, in many ways, a caretaker and always had been. He couldn't see someone, or something, in need and stand by and let it happen.

Yes, it would make messes, and it might chew the furniture, and it would probably shed its fur everywhere, but it already made Ron so happy… and beyond that, the sight of him snuggling this little nugget of a puppy had already completely melted her heart.

"So what are we naming him?"

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	10. Sorry, Were You Sleeping?

**Disclaimer: As much as I love the Harry Potter universe, it's not mine! I just do this for fun.**

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 **Sorry, Were You Sleeping?**

Truth be told, the sofa cushions weren't actually that comfortable. All the furniture in Grimmauld Place was approximately three hundred years old by Hermione's estimation, and the cushions were lumpy in some places and scratchy in others. But Ron had taken one look at her sad little sleeping bag on the cold drawing room floor, shaken his head, and begun assembling this makeshift bed and Hermione had been powerless to stop him. And so now she shifted around, trying to find a position to sleep in that didn't make one of her arms go numb.

Not that it was any use trying to sleep at all. After the events of the evening, Hermione felt like her mind would never slow down. How, _how_ had the Death Eaters found them? And where would they go from here? Could they possibly stay in this house? Could they ever go back to the Burrow?

"Ron," she whispered into the silence, rolling onto her side. His arm lay carelessly on the floor between them as his chest rose and fell with deep, slow breaths. "Ron?"

On the other side of the ottoman, Harry let out a garbling snore. At least he wasn't having another vision.

"Ron," Hermione tried again, poking him on the arm. He started, eyes wide, staring around the room. "Sorry, were you sleeping?"

"No," he said, though his lazy voice betrayed him. The sliver of light from the window illuminated his messy hair on his pillow. "What's up?"

"I can't sleep," Hermione confessed. "I think I'm driving myself mad, I keep going over everything."

"I know," said Ron. "I can practically hear the gears going in your head."

"I can't understand anything that happened tonight," Hermione went on anxiously. "How did they find us? Did they put the Trace back on Harry somehow? Was there someone at the wedding in disguise to do that? What if it's someone in the Order, we all thought we could trust Snape-"

"Hermione," he interrupted. "Breathe."

"I can't! Ron, what are we supposed to do now?" she lamented as he fixed his eyes on her. "I've been preparing for the worst for weeks but there's still so much we don't know and I just don't know what to do."

"That's okay," Ron whispered into the darkness. "I mean, I know as much as you do, probably less," he chuckled sadly. "I'm not going to lie, I'm freaking out too. But we're in it together, right? Me and you? And Harry?"

He scooted half an inch toward her and their fingertips grazed, sending a jolt directly through Hermione's stomach. She straightened her elbow so that their palms met and their fingers interlocked loosely together. There had been a few moments like this between them since they had left Hogwarts, little subtle things that somehow seemed to speak volumes, but this was more. This was so much more than an arm around her shoulders to comfort her or dancing at his brother's wedding. This, lying here in the dark with his thumb rubbing over hers, was a step far beyond friendship.

"Right," Hermione breathed. "Together."

Suddenly the sofa cushions felt a lot more comfortable.

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	11. I Don't Want This

Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to JKR, not me.

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 **I Don't Want This**

"This one's for you, mate," said George, nudging a small glass of a smoky amber liquid across the grimy table. Ron eyed it warily, watching it double and triple before him through the shaky, alcohol-induced haze in his brain.

"Another one?" he asked, his stomach churning at the thought of downing any more liquid. He shot a pleading look to Harry, who just sort of cringed uselessly and starting digging through his pockets.

"Yeah, c'mon, it's your stag night!" George continued. "What good is it if you don't get absolutely legless?"

But Ron had not wanted a stag night, not at all. His idea of an enjoyable weekend evening was one spent curled up on the sofa with Hermione, watching a Muggle film or playing chess. It was decidedly not one where he knew he'd spend the next day with an ice pack pressed against his forehead.

"No," Ron decided, pushing away the shot of Firewhisky.

"One more."

"No!" Ron snapped. "I don't want this."

Looking disappointed, George took the shot for himself as Ron took another look around the dilapidated pub in which he had found himself. He hadn't asked for any of it. His wedding was in two short weeks and he felt he ought to be at home with his fiancé, making her tea and rubbing her shoulders and trying to alleviate at least some of the stress that came from planning the biggest day of their lives.

And then, as he gave a feeble hiccup, she came strolling in through the door. Her hair was piled on top of her head in a fluffy bun and he was pretty sure she was wearing one of his jumpers but she was still the sweetest sight he'd ever seen. As he gawked at her in disbelief, she held up a gleaming gold Galleon.

"Harry thought you might need to be rescued," she explained, sitting down beside him in the booth and plunking the coin on the table. It was, of course, no ordinary Galleon, but one that Hermione had charmed during their fifth year and now bore the address of the pub along its edge where a serial number should have been.

Ron barely noticed the indignant protests from his older brother - who clearly felt it a great travesty for the bride to show up at a stag night - as he bade goodbye to the rest of his group and let Hermione pull him onto the street. He was far too inebriated to Apparate with any sort of accuracy, so she gripped his arm as she turned on the spot and they were standing in their kitchen a moment later.

"You want some tea?" Hermione offered, not waiting for a response before setting up the kettle on the stove. "You seem like you could use it."

Wrapping his arms around her waist from behind, Ron buried her face in her neck and breathed in the scent of her hair.

"I just want you," he muttered, making her laugh as she attempted to set the water to boil from within the grips of his vice-like hug. "Only you."

The whole point of stag nights, Ron knew, was for the groom-to-be to cling to the last vestiges of some sort of rowdy single life, but Ron had never wanted those things. What he had always wanted was Hermione and a life with her, not some hollow existence as a lonely bachelor. The party tonight had only shown him everything that he was not missing. And he thought, as she rotated in his arms and took his face in her hands, that he could hardly wait to marry her.

"So you didn't have fun at all tonight?" she asked as she stood on tiptoe to lightly kiss him.

Ron gave a lazy shrug and brushed a tendril of hair behind her ear. "I'd just rather be with you."

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	12. Just Stay With Me

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry or any of his buddies I promise.

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 **Just Stay With Me**

Hermione wasn't proud of it, exactly, when she cast a Disillusionment Charm on herself, casually followed Harry up to the boys dormitory and then nicked his Invisibility Cloak, but well, desperate times called for quite desperate measures. Ron had nearly died, after all, and even thinking about that - a world without Ron Weasley - made her throat constrict, her palms sweat, her eyes water. And so, though lately it was rather inadvisable to wander about the castle at night, she undid the Disillusionment Charm, slipped under the Cloak and trekked off to the hospital wing.

She'd already seen him earlier that day, of course, already had an awkward spat with Lavender - God, the whole thing seemed so trivial now - but still, she felt she couldn't sleep tonight if she didn't lay eyes on him again. Just to be sure that he was really, truly okay, because if Harry hadn't found that bezoar so quickly, her last words to him might have been some barbed comment about his trainers being too tight and she couldn't live with that.

It would be quick. She'd just go, check that he was breathing, and go back before Harry even knew what had happened to his Cloak.

She managed to invade the hospital wing with a few silently-executed unlocking spells (really, what was the point in locking the door at all?) and made toward Ron's bed. A sliver of moonlight had fallen across his face, throwing his countless freckles into sharp relief. Careful to walk soundlessly, she stepped to the edge of his bed and watched his chest rise and fall with deep, steady breaths. He looked a bit pale, still, but that was to be expected. The important thing was that he was okay.

One of his hands was lying limply atop the blankets, and despite all of her better judgment, Hermione shed the Cloak so she could slide her fingers around his. Across the back of his hand was a thin, swirling scar, a souvenir from their fiasco at the Department of Mysteries last year. Another time, Hermione thought as her heart sank, that any one of them could have been lost in a heartbeat. All year she'd been preoccupied with the silliest things - Lavender, the Slug Club, even Quidditch - when the truth was that in times like these, anything could happen. Ron, for better or worse, was her best friend and nothing was worth losing that.

A gurgled cough from the bed snapped Hermione out of her daze and she looked up to see Ron's eyes slowly cracking open.

"Er… my-nee?" he mumbled hoarsely, squinting as though he couldn't believe his eyes.

Hermione dropped his hand like a hot potato. "Oh! Hi - sorry - I, I just-" _I just came here to hold your hand and watch you sleep?_ She couldn't say that, not if she wanted him to think she was even remotely sane. "I'll go. Sorry."

"No, no," Ron said, struggling up to a sitting position and glancing briefly at the hand she'd been holding. "Don't go. I've been sleeping all day and it's so boring here. Just stay with me. Please?"

"Well…" The hospital wing was completely silent, without a sign of Madame Pomfrey's presence, and she did really miss talking to Ron…

"Just for a little while?" Ron pleaded. "We haven't hung out together in ages, and I just, I miss-"

"Sure," she interrupted. He was probably about to apologize. He was probably about to say all sorts of things that she found she just didn't need to hear, not now. The time to talk would come later, but right now, she just wanted her friend back. "Of course."

As Hermione dropped down into a chair at his bedside, she peered down at the Invisibility Cloak, crumpled forlornly on the ground. Harry, she thought, would not miss it for a few more hours.

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	13. I Won't Let You

Disclaimer: I own literally nothing!

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 **I Won't Let You**

The waning hours of the thirty-first of August were warm and muggy, especially in the top bedroom of the tallest residence in Ottery St. Catchpole, but Hermione was too busy wishing for time to stop to care much. The Hogwarts Express was set to leave in less than twelve hours, and she just wanted to spend as many of them as possible just like this, tucked into Ron's tiny twin bed with her head nestled against his bare chest. Right now, it was all she wanted.

Her trunk, currently residing in her bedroom at home, was all packed and ready, containing her robes and textbooks and a badge reading Head Girl. Tomorrow she would go to Platform 9 ¾, kiss Ron goodbye, give Harry a hug, and head off to Hogwarts alone. Okay, so she'd have Ginny, but it just wouldn't be the same. Hermione couldn't picture Hogwarts without Ron.

Wordlessly, he pulled her closer and dropped a light kiss on her hair, his fingers drifting along her spine. This past summer had changed her life. She'd fallen in love (or rather, begun acting on it), she'd gone to Australia to retrieve her parents, she had experienced a Voldemort-free wizarding world. The thought of leaving all of it behind - of leaving Ron behind - brought a lump to her throat.

"Ron?" she said into the stillness, watching her own finger trace a cluster of freckles near his collarbone. "I think I'm going to stay."

Every muscle in his body became stiff. "Wh - what do you mean?"

"I'm not going to go back," she said, her voice shaking. "Ginny can be Head Girl or something but I'm going to stay here."

"What?" he asked again, sounding as baffled as if she were speaking Mermish. "Hermione, you can't be serious."

Well… this was not quite the reaction she had expected. It was the sort of decision, after all, that she thought would prompt him to kiss her into oblivion, or elicit joyous disbelief. At the very least, she thought he might smile about it, but he just looked confused.

"I am serious," she said as she sat up, holding the bedsheet to her chest. "I'm going to miss you so much, and, and they'll be fine without me-"

"You've got to go back," Ron stated simply. "You can't stay just because of me, I'm not worth that."

"Yes, you are, don't - don't you want me to stay?" Suddenly her heart began to pound in her chest at the thought that he might be fine without her.

Ron pushed himself up so that his back was against his headboard, long legs stretched out between them. "Of course I _want_ you to stay, I'm going to miss you like crazy, but - no. You can't. I won't let you."

" _Let_ me?" Hermione said incredulously. "Ron, let's be clear, you don't _let_ me do anything-"

"I just mean," he interrupted, "that I think you'll really regret it if you don't and I don't want to be what stops you from doing something you really want."

All summer, any time the topic of Hogwarts came up, Hermione had sort of expected him to ask her to stay, but he never had, and now she knew why. The way he loved her was entirely selfless.

"I can't stand the thought of not seeing you every day," Ron went on, slipping his hand around hers. "But we'll be okay, it's not forever, and it'll be worth it in the long run."

"Do you really think so?"

"I'm probably going to hate myself tomorrow for saying all of this, but yeah, I actually do."

Hermione shifted around so she was seated next to him and rested her head on his shoulder. Ron was right. It would be hard, of course, even painful at times, to be so far from the person she loved, but they would make it. After surviving the past year, they could make it through anything.

"That's very mature of you," Hermione commented, angling her face toward him for the briefest peck on the lips.

"Yeah, reckon it had to happen sometime. And besides," he said, brightening, "think of all the dirty letters we can write."

With an eye roll, Hermione swatted him on the leg as he burst into laughter. "Aaaand there it goes."

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	14. Are You F--king Insane?

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, only the ridiculous plot of the nonsense below. Also a warning, there is a bit of swearing in this chapter.

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 **Are You Fucking Insane?**

The Burrow now being headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix had its advantages - Ron's mum couldn't as easily kick him out of the meetings - but then, attending those meetings meant that he listened to the intricacies of the plan for Harry's extraction over and over again until it was burned into his brain. He'd been the first to volunteer to be one of the six imposters and then he'd watched in horror as Hermione raised her hand and said, in a tone that said nobody was to argue, that she too would transform into the visage of the most wanted wizard in England.

For the remainder of the meeting, he had managed to keep calm, to listen to Mad-Eye's instructions, and then when the meeting was adjourned, he followed her up to his room so they could keep sorting through their old school things. Secretly he kept hoping that this would one day become code for 'snogging each other's brains out' but that hadn't happened yet.

"Should we bring Advanced Potion-Making?" she asked rather sensibly, sitting on the floor amongst piles of textbooks. Ron goggled at her; how could she be so calm? "We might need some of these recipes, I suppose, but then-"

"Are you fucking insane?" He couldn't help blurting it out, even though he was wholly unsurprised to see annoyance flash in her eyes.

"Excuse me?"

"You can't Polyjuice into Harry," he continued, sitting down across from her.

"Why not, exactly?"

"Well - I mean - you'll be him, you're going to see his - his-"

Hermione's cheeks flushed a scorching crimson even as she fought back a smile. "I wasn't planning on looking, Ron."

"What if you need the loo?" he pressed on stubbornly as she quirked an eyebrow.

"I'll go beforehand." She scowled at her old copy of Defensive Magical Theory and placed it in a stack of other equally-useless books. "Is that really what you're worried about? Me seeing Harry's-"

"Stop," Ron interrupted, unwilling to go on discussing his best mate's business any longer. "No, it's just - it's really dangerous, Hermione, to just go masquerading around as him-"

"You're doing it."

"That's different."

"How, may I ask?"

But how could he explain it to her? How could he explain that she was far more valuable than he was, that he'd never recover from it if something happened to her, that he'd promised himself years ago that he'd protect her and he couldn't go back on that?

"Because you're you," he stated finally, deciding that honesty was the best policy. "You're Hermione Granger and I - we need you."

Her face softened. "Ron, nothing is going to happen-"

"Just be careful, please? Promise me?"

"I promise," she smiled, her brown eyes connecting on his. "And you - you need to promise to be careful too."

"Only if you promise not to go peeking anywhere you shouldn't-"

"Ron!" Her hand struck his thigh as he collapsed backwards into laughter. "Okay, fine, I promise that too."

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	15. You Always This Quiet?

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

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 **You Always This Quiet?**

The plan was changing, as of course it would - nothing about the extraction of Harry Potter from the Dursleys' could be simple, of course - but finally the rest of the Order had headed home, leaving Ron alone with Hermione in the cozy comfort of the Burrow's kitchen. Ron couldn't exactly say he was growing accustomed to these moments of solitude with her, as her mere presence seemed to heighten every one of his senses, but they'd been more and more frequent over the past few months and he was certainly not complaining. He was eager to see Harry, sure, but he rather liked having her all to himself.

"Tea?" he suggested, rising from the table to fetch the kettle. Hermione just shrugged, which Ron took as a yes. The great thing about finally being of age was the freedom to use magic whenever he pleased, and within seconds he had the water boiling. "You want milk or sugar or anything in it?"

"I don't care," she muttered back, her eyes fixed on a burn mark in the table.

Ron paused, his hand halfway to the cupboard. Since when did Hermione not share her opinion? "Lots of sugar it is, then," he declared brightly, fully anticipating a speech on the irreparable damage he would do to their teeth with his sugar addiction.

"Okay."

Ron turned to look at her, watching her hair fall in curtains around her face. Hastily, he prepared two cups (and he did accidentally dump quite a bit of sugar into them in his rush) and then sat down in the chair beside her.

"You always this quiet?" he asked, knowing that the truthful answer was a resounding no. She never shut up usually, and he loved it. He could bicker and banter back and forth with her for hours and never get bored, so these monosyllabic responses were, frankly, a little scary.

"I'm just worried," she said finally, idly stirring her tea. "About my mum and dad."

"Oh." Of course she'd be concerned for them. They were Muggles, they had little defense against Death Eaters. "Well, I'm sure Kingsley could put some wards up around your house, like he's done here-"

"But they're not there," she said, her voice hoarse. "They're in Australia."

"Wait, what?"

"I modified their memories," Hermione confessed, watching the milky liquid swirl around in her mug. "I changed their names and made it so they thought their life's dream was to move to Australia and now they've gone, and - and they don't know I exist. They don't think they have any children." She dropped her forehead into her palm as Ron stared, open-mouthed, and searched his brains for something, anything, to say.

"Oh, Hermione-"

"I didn't know what else to do!" she cried, finally meeting his eyes. "It's only a matter of time before the Death Eaters go looking for them, and - and they're Muggles, they never asked for any of this! It's my fault that they're in danger, I have to protect them."

"It's okay," Ron said gently. Feeling like he could - like he should, really - he placed a hand on her back. "You know they're safe now, that's what's important."

"But what if I've done the spell wrong? I've never done that kind of magic before, I studied the theory as much as I could but we all know theory isn't the same as actual practice and-"

"Hey," he interrupted her fretting. "I'm sure you did fine. And it's not permanent, the spell, is it? You can get them back?"

"No, it can be undone. But that's actually the worst of it, what if I go to find them and they never forgive me for it? If I was them, I'd be furious-"

"Look," said Ron, "they had enough faith in you to send you to Hogwarts in the first place, didn't they?" He'd begun rubbing a circle into her back without even realizing it. "And it was the right thing to do, because you're brilliant. They know that... and I know that." Hermione nodded, blinking rapidly to keep tears at bay. "So they'd have to trust you, right, that you did the right thing?"

"I suppose," she said, not sounding convinced.

"And if we - when we win - and it's safe for them to come back..." Ron took a moment to summon his courage. "I'll go with you."

"You would?" She seemed in awe.

"Yeah, of course. If you want me to, I'll be there."

She sniffled and mustered up a watery smile. "Thanks, Ron."

"Yeah, anything," he replied, giving her shoulder a squeeze. "Now drink your tea," he changed tacks, needing to break the ice, "it's getting cold."

She brought the mug to her lips and took a small sip, only to nearly choke and gawk at him in astonishment. "That's like liquid candy! How much sugar did you put in here?"

"Just a little bit," he chuckled.

"You know, when you eat sugar," Hermione began, "it wears away at the enamel on your teeth and that's permanent damage, and it can also cause cavities..."

Ron leaned back in his chair and sipped his own sugary tea, thoroughly enjoying his lecture.

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	16. Will You Help Me?

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I'm also not sorry about the angst *evil laugh*

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 **Will You Help Me?**

Ron knew he shouldn't be scared of Hermione, but then again, he did still have scars on his hands from the very real canaries she had set on him back in November. Perhaps it was simply logic and a touch of self-preservation that had him lurking in the stacks, peering around the shelves to witness her studying alone at a table. He was dying to approach her - he really didn't want to turn seventeen tomorrow with his best friend still hating him - but he knew her eyes could shoot daggers and she was frighteningly adept at wounding with her words, so he hung back.

 _Some Gryffindor_ , he berated himself. He should have been perfectly capable of walking up and saying, 'Hermione, I've been a jerk and I want to be friends again' but somehow the words seemed constantly caught in his throat. Not to mention he couldn't get himself to chuck Lavender, something he'd been intending to do for - well, it had to have been weeks now - and that should have been easy enough considering they both knew they had almost nothing in common. And yet... he was frozen, paralyzed by his own anxiety.

Maybe he could just pretend like everything was normal again. What if he just walked up and starting chattering on about Quidditch and the horribleness of Professor Snape and acted like the past few months had been nothing more than a bad dream?

 _She'd hex you_ , he quickly realized with dismay. It was time for Plan B: appealing to her studious side. She could never resist assisting someone in need of a bit of tutelage and anyway, he'd always liked her supervision of his schoolwork. She used to lean over his shoulder, so close that he could smell her shampoo, and sometimes he'd purposely put a stupid answer down just to see her get all exasperated - okay, that's it, he determined, watching her tuck a stray curl behind an ear. He had officially had it with the stalemate between them. It was time to act.

His footsteps thudded across the library floor as he approached her table, watching her quill scratch feverishly across the parchment. If she noticed him, she didn't let on.

"Er, Hermione?" he began, trying to squash down the quavering in his voice. She looked up, stoic, and said nothing. "Hi." _Smooth, Weasley. Very smooth_. "Er, so we've got that Potions essay due on Monday, y'know, the one on blended antidotes and erm, I'm sort of having trouble with it, so, erm, I mean, I was hoping - will you help me?"

Her eyes locked on his, and for one wild moment he hoped against hope that she just might, despite his apparent inability to string together a coherent sentence, invite him to join her. That they might sit in the library together and she would laugh at his jokes again and the the near-constant tightness in his chest might begin to unclench. Instead she just gazed at him, expressionless, while his heart hammered resolutely in his ears.

"Why would I help you?" she asked, her voice low and flat and like a punch to Ron's stomach. _Because I miss you?_ he thought desperately. _Because you're my best friend and life is boring without you and I went a bit mental last term but now I've seen the light? Because I don't give a damn about Potions, I just want to talk to you again?_

"Oh, r-right," he stuttered, his eyes cast down to the desk where her own essay lay. "I, I, yeah, I'll just - I'll go. I'm sorry." He met her gaze again. "I'm sorry, Hermione."

He would have to turn seventeen without her after all.

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	17. I'll Help You Now

S, this is a follow up to the previous drabble, "Will You Help Me?" The lovely aloemilk inspired this one (and by inspired, I mean that she gave me the idea, she was like "what if after that, x happened?" and I was like "omg yes!" and then the below happened). Hope everybody likes it! (Also, go check out aloemilk's stuff if you haven't already, she's so good!)

Hopefully, Hermione thought, it wasn't too embarrassingly obvious that she'd all but moved into the hospital wing, but what else was she meant to do? Ron had nearly died, would have done if not for Harry's quick thinking, and her last words to him would have been unnecessarily cruel. And even though he was, by all accounts, going to be completely fine, that knowledge had lodged a very stubborn pit in her stomach, an awful, gnawing sort of guilt that she didn't think would ever really fade.

And so there she sat in the chair beside his bed, with an enormous stack of textbooks next to her to give the illusion that she was treating the hospital wing as though it were no different than the library. As though she hadn't come there for the express purpose of watching him lie there and idly flip through Harry's copy of _Which Broomstick._ As Harry was holding an emergency Quidditch practice, they were alone, the rustling of pages filling a remarkably comfortable silence between them. In the blink of an eye - in the time it took to shove a bezoar into someone's mouth - they had dropped whatever animosity lingered between them. Ron had forgiven her for the canaries and for holding a grudge for months and they were friends again, just like that. Hermione almost didn't want to disturb it.

"You like studying in here, huh?" Ron remarked, setting his book down on his blanket-covered legs.

"It makes for a nice change of scenery," Hermione replied, opting not to clarify that for her, he basically _was_ the scenery. Not when he still technically had a girlfriend.

"Well, thanks for keeping me company, anyway. It's boring as hell in here."

"You must have homework of your own to do," she found herself saying. Evidently it was rather easy to slip back into her old habit of pestering him about his studies. "Don't you need to do that Potions essay? I'll help you now with it, if you want."

"Oh." Ron's lips twitched briefly. "I kind of reckoned being poisoned would get me out of doing homework for a couple days, but - yeah, I finished that already."

Hermione paused, the pieces falling into place in her forever-racing mind. "You did?"

Two days ago he had stood before her, requesting just a tiny bit of her time, but when she had looked at him all she was able to see was the memory of his mouth glued to Lavender's and so it was too painful to be around him. But actually, if she was honest with herself, she did miss their little study sessions. She had always been glad for an excuse to smell his hair and sit close to him, glad for an excuse to stay up late in the common room…

Had it been the same for him?

"Yeah, it wasn't that bad," said Ron, still shockingly nonchalant about the whole thing, shooting her a smile. "I just sort of thought it might get you to talk to me again. Of course, it didn't work," he chuckled as he picked up _Which Broomstick_ again.

"I'd have thought it was obvious how to get me to talk to you again," Hermione said, biting her lip to keep herself from saying anything more.

"Yeah, get poisoned," he grinned, holding his book up as a shield as she moved to swat him on the arm.

"That's not funny, Ron!"

"You have to admit, it was effective," he continued, biting back laughter as she glowered at him.

"It really isn't funny," she snapped, the force of her words startling him into seriousness. "You don't know how scary it was, I thought you were going to die thinking that I hated you and I don't, I - I was just really scared, okay?"

"All right, all right, sorry," said Ron defensively, holding up his hands.

"And that's not actually what I meant," she added. Immediately she cast her eyes down to the textbook on her lap, scared to look at him, scared to see if he'd picked up on the implication.

"Oh." A silence, punctuated by the sound of Ron nervously clearing his throat, fell between them, and then he spoke. "I really am, you know. Sorry."

"I am too," Hermione whispered.

Looking mildly dazed, Ron let a forceful breath out through his lips and mustered up a smile. "So what're the chances McGonagall lets me out of that Transfiguration essay for tomorrow?"

"You haven't started that yet?" Hermione exclaimed. "For heaven's sake, Ron. Come here."

Taking a sheet of parchment and a quill from her stash, Hermione inched her chair up against the side of his bed. She leaned toward him, watching as he dutifully inked the title of the essay onto the page.

"So, there are five exceptions to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration," Hermione began. "The first one is-" She froze, noticing him smiling at her in a way he hadn't done in months. "What?"

"Nothing, nothing at all." He poked her leg through her robes. "Keep talking."

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 _Thank you for reading! Please review :)_


	18. So, It Was You

A/N: This actually ended up being a little follow-up to "Is That My Shirt?" thanks to a lovely review that TMBlue left on that drabble... because clothes-sharing is everything.

Disclaimer: I still don't own anything, including Harry Potter.

* * *

 **So, It Was You**

Ron had always supposed it was bad luck, or maybe the twins messing with him, or possibly even Lavender during those odd few months of sixth year, but his Muggle clothing had a history of vanishing throughout his six years at Hogwarts. He didn't have a ton of stuff to begin with - the traditional Weasley Christmas jumper, some old hand-me-downs from Bill, a few Cannons items that he'd scrimped and saved to purchase for himself - so he'd always felt he needed everything he had. Even the garments that were too small, he could stretch those out with magic to a point and make them work, but not if they were gone. Things always turned up in the end, too, which usually had him wondering if he was going a bit mad.

It was even worse after a year on the run; he was amazed he even had a pair of pajamas left (his pajama trousers, too, went missing with alarming frequency). But regardless, he'd crammed everything he owned into his rucksack and followed Hermione halfway around the world, because he'd do anything for her, even if he had to do it in a pair of slacks that he'd owned since he was twelve. And now that they were in Australia, in their very own hotel room, he was really just glad to be here with her at all.

Hermione emerged from the bathroom, face freshly scrubbed, just as Ron was finally figuring out how to work the remote control for the television. She sat on the bed next to him and pecked his cheek, linking her arm through his.

Her maroon wool-clad arm.

 _Huh_.

"Koalas?" she questioned, pointing to the little animals onscreen.

"Just be glad it's not the Sydney tourism channel anymore," replied Ron with a little chuckle. Linking their fingers together, he rubbed his free hand over the fabric on her forearm. "Not that I mind at all, but where'd you find this?" It was the one from sixth year, and as it still fit him relatively well, he'd actually been looking for it.

"Oh - well..." She bit her lower lip and stared down at the paisley pattern on the bedspread. "It was at the bottom of the beaded bag, so I just took it to sleep in, you've never noticed before-"

Hermione seemed to recognize her own slip of the tongue and snapped her mouth shut, now looking down at their interlaced hands.

"Wait," said Ron, watching a blush creep up her cheeks. "What do you mean, before?"

"I - I just like sleeping in your clothes sometimes," Hermione admitted, "but I always give them back-"

"So it was you," Ron realized with a dawning clarity. "You've been my clothes thief all these years?"

"Yes," she said meekly, meeting his eyes through thick, dark lashes. She looked so embarrassed at being found out, but this was actually blowing his mind; it amazed him that even years ago, she had been that compelled to feel close to him.

"So then that time at Shell Cottage, that wasn't the first time you've done that?"

"No, it's been since... third year, I think?"

Ron goggled at her. "You've been wearing my clothes since _third year?_ "

"Oh, your clothes are just so much better than mine," she insisted, "they're all big and warm and soft and so they're perfect for sleeping in."

"Just out of curiosity, how much of my stuff do you have right now?" asked Ron, laughing and giving her hand a little squeeze.

"Er, just this jumper and that one Cannons shirt, but you did say I could have that," she defended herself, looking defiantly up at Ron.

"You can have whatever you want," he assured her, and he hoped he knew he wasn't just talking about pilfering his wardrobe. "I don't have a ton, but what's mine is yours."

He really didn't need any of it. He had her, after all, and that was more than enough.

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	19. I Really Need You

A/N: You will have to pry Shell Cottage missing moments from my cold, dead hands.

Warning: Blood. Lots of it. Also angst.

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 **I Really Need You**

His hands were covered in her blood; it dribbled from her arms, her broken fingernails, her neck - oh God, her neck, that was the worst of it, it was practically gushing, soaking her jumper. His wand - well, one of the stolen ones - shook violently in his hands as he tried to cast a spell to stop the bleeding, but it only halfway worked. It was a miracle that he had managed to Apparate, and accurately at that: the lights of his brother's cottage twinkled nearby. As Ron scrambled up out of the wet sand, Hermione limp in his arms, and carried her toward the house, all he could think about were Neville's parents.

It had been the same witch, the same curse. If it was the same fate, Ron wasn't sure he could handle it. Hermione was so brilliant, so sharp and quick and clever, and the thought of her locked in St. Mungo's, unable to speak, unable to recognize her own family... it was too much.

"Bill!" Ron shouted, kicking the bottom of the door with his foot. "Bill, it's me, open up!"

From there, it was a blur, a messy whirlwind of healing potions and damp cloths; Hermione was laid out on the sofa, her head lolling off to one side, her hair a knotted mess. Ron knelt on the floor beside her, desperate to do something, anything to help. With a tea towel, he dabbed essence of dittany onto the incision on her neck, cringing as it hissed and smoked.

But he'd had dittany used on him before. He knew it stung and burned even as it healed, and yet Hermione wasn't waking up... and God, he'd have given anything to see those brown eyes open, even if only to glare at him the way she'd done so much over the past few months, but she was slack, still, almost... lifeless.

"Hermione, please wake up," he choked out, using a blood-streaked hand to brush her hair out of her eyes. "Please, you've got to be okay, because if you're not..." He swallowed thickly, suppressing a wave of nausea at the thought. "You've just got to be, all right, because we need you, Harry needs you, I-" He wrapped his hands around one of hers, delicately cradling her small, thin fingers. "I really need you."

Her eyelashes, thick and dark against her cheeks, fluttered just the slightest bit.

"I can't do this without you," Ron went on, fully aware his older brother was watching this exchange but not bothering to care. "I don't want to do any of this if you're not - so please, please just-"

"Ron?"

It was the faintest, hoarsest whisper, but it made his heart leap into his throat. Her eyes were just barely open, but what little he could see was clear and bright and focused right on him.

She knew him, knew his name, knew his voice, knew him by the untidy mop of orange hair on his head. She was going to be fine.

"Hang on one second," Ron told her, shamelessly touching her knuckles to his lips (she had nearly _died_ , okay, he was going to kiss her hand if he wanted to). "I just want to see if Harry made it-"

"No, stay," she breathed, tightening her fingers around his. "I - I need you too."

* * *

 _Thank you for reading! Please review :)_


	20. Will You Marry Me?

Warning: Copious amounts of fluff. Also, an almost-naked Ron Weasley.

* * *

 **Will You Marry Me?**

Ron wouldn't exactly say he was used to waking up next to Hermione - he would never truly get used to anything about her - but he'd come to expect it, in any case, now that they lived together. Now that three whole years together had solidified the fact that she loved him and willingly chose to put up with his snoring, his morning breath, his occasional bad temper that lasted only until his first bite of breakfast... yes, she had truly chosen him, for better or worse.

And for him, well, he had chosen her years ago without even realizing it, wholly unaware that he had welcomed her permanently into his heart and his life and his consciousness. Now, he couldn't undo it even if he wanted to, this love for her, even as it had evolved and grown over the years. He hadn't always known it, but it was always going to be her from the instant they met in that train compartment.

Next to him, she rolled over onto her side, her brown eyes blinking open in the vibrant Saturday sunlight. She inched toward him, snaking an arm over his waist, and nestled her face into his bare chest. Ron dropped a kiss onto her bushy hair, which was all in disarray, and felt like he had suddenly known all along where this morning was headed.

"Hey," he whispered, tickling her back with his fingertips. "Do we have any plans today?"

He reckoned it was best to ask, since she was always forgetting to tell him. He would be under the impression that they had a quiet weekend night ahead of him only to find out at the last moment, "didn't I tell you? We're meant to have dinner with my gran, and remember, she thinks we're Muggles..." and then he'd find himself scrambling to recall his 'I'm not a wizard' cover story. He never minded, anyway. That was just their life together: unpredictable.

"No, nothing," Hermione said into his shoulder. "Why?"

And he'd always thought, in this moment, that he'd have to summon the spirit of Godric Gryffindor to be as courageous as he'd need to be, but that didn't seem necessary anymore. There was nothing scary about any of it.

"Hmm." He angled his face to touch his lips to hers. "Let's get married."

He knew her well enough to know she was suddenly wide awake at the suggestion.

"You're barking," she replied, her lips still nudging his as she spoke. "What do you really want to do today?"

"I want to get married," Ron repeated as she looked directly into his eyes, clearly trying to read if this was just his way of teasing her on a weekend morning.

His heart started to hammer in his chest as she silently studied him.

"Are you proposing to me?" she asked, a smile just threatening to burst forth on her features.

"Yes," Ron declared. "I want to marry you. Today."

"Well - but - I mean-" Despite this feeble protestation, she was grinning fully now. "I mean, that's _crazy_ , we can't just go and get married _today_ -"

"Sure we can. If we go down to the Ministry, we'll be married in time for lunch."

Hermione sat up, blankets bunching in her lap, Ron's old Chudley Cannons t-shirt hanging loosely on her frame.

"You're really serious, aren't you?"

"Yeah, it happens occasionally," Ron replied, his every limb trembling with adrenaline as he shifted up to sit as well. "Hold on, hold on, I've got to do this properly, just give me one second."

He'd been planning on doing this differently, in a much more romantic fashion, when they went on holiday next month, but best laid plans had never really worked out for him and Hermione in the past and he reckoned it was a bit naive to expect that to start happening now. They'd learned long ago they couldn't map out every second of their lives and sometimes leaping before they looked was the very best thing for them.

So he scrambled out of the bed, barely noticing that he was only wearing his pants, and yanked open a dresser drawer. It was the one where he tended to keep things like old Quidditch gloves and some of the woolly-bladder-style knit hats that Hermione had made during fifth year - the sort of drawer she had no interest in exploring - and recovered a small, square, wooden box.

"You - when did you get that?!" Hermione exclaimed when she saw what he was holding.

"A couple weeks ago," said Ron, clambering back onto the bed to sit cross-legged in front of her. "I was going to wait to ask you, but then - but then I woke up this morning and I looked at you and I really don't want to spend another day not married to you and so..." He popped open the box to reveal a glittering ruby set into a gold band. "Oh, and I promise this isn't goblin-made, I know how you feel about that, so I got it at a Muggle shop-"

"Ron," Hermione choked out, eyes glassy with unshed tears, "are you going to ask me or not?"

"Well, I just - all right. Okay. Hermione," he began, extracting the ring from the box, "will you marry me?"

She pounced forward, tackling him back onto the bed, and the ring went flying.

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 _Thank you for reading! Please review :)_


	21. I Need To Go

A/N: This was supposed to be a drabble but can you call it that when it's over 1300 words? Oops. Also, no, still not JKR...

* * *

 **I Need To Go**

Harry and Ron had taken to sharing Pigwidgeon during the early months after the war, partly because Harry had not yet been able to bring himself to replace Hedwig and partly because all of their letters were going to and from the same place: Hogwarts to Grimmauld Place and back again. Always eager to make a delivery, the minuscule owl never minded the extra cargo, instead flying enthusiastically into the Great Hall at breakfast and depositing shoddily-folded bits of parchment into Hermione's and Ginny's laps. The first Tuesday of October, however, only one letter fell from the owl's beak next to a plate of buttered toast.

"Oh, no, Pig, did you drop one?" asked Hermione as Ginny unfolded the letter, the little bird landing on her shoulder. "Who's that from?"

"Harry," Ginny said slowly, her face draining of color, "but it's for you."

Hermione's head snapped over at Ginny's rattled voice.

"What? Let me see that."

Snatching the letter for herself, Hermione began to read, ignoring that Ginny was now nursing a sizable paper cut on her finger.

 _Hermione,_

 _Before you panic, let me start by saying that everything's going to be fine, but I reckoned you should know that Ron's in St. Mungo's - and it's nothing serious, it's just that we were in training and I cast a curse and it rebounded and it hit him - I'm SO SORRY - and the Healers say there shouldn't be any permanent damage and he'll be fine once he wakes up. I just knew you'd want to know and they say he should wake up and be back to normal (or, back to being Ron, anyway) in a day at the most. I'll keep you updated. Actually, Ron will, because he'll be fine, and please don't worry or do anything crazy._

 _\- Harry_

Hermione felt like her bones had turned to dust. Harry could sugarcoat it as much as he wanted, but the truth was right there: Ron was lying in St. Mungo's, cursed and unconscious, and Hermione was thousands of miles away at Hogwarts, trapped there by magical wards and her own obligations. The thought was too much to take. There had been so many times in the past when she had thought that she'd never see him again, that she would lose him before she ever really had him, and now it was happening again.

"It says he's going to be completely fine-" began Ginny bracingly as Pigwidgeon hopped down to the table and nibbled on a slice of toast.

"I need to go," Hermione muttered, almost tripping in her haste to vacate the table. Several students stared after her, perplexed, as she rushed out of the Great Hall and up to the third floor. Her feet could hardly carry her quickly enough; what if, in the time it took the the smallest owl in England to fly from London to the Scottish Highlands, something had changed? What if the Healers were wrong? She and Ron had barely even gotten started. Their summer together had been brilliant, even in the aftermath of the war, but they'd been separated now for only a month and this had already happened, and if she lost him-

"Harpies," Hermione gasped to the stone gargoyle standing guard outside of the Headmaster's quarters. As she knew it would, the gargoyle stepped aside so Hermione could bolt up the circular staircase and into the office.

Professor McGonagall looked up from her desk at Hermione's entrance, startled by the sudden intrusion.

"Miss Granger, what's-"

"Professor," Hermione began, breathless, "I'm so sorry to ask you this, I know I'm Head Girl and I know I need to be here, but it's just-" She paused, trying to determine a way to word her request without sounding like a boy-crazed teenager. "Ron's in hospital, he's at St. Mungo's, he accidentally got cursed during training, and I know I shouldn't be asking this, and it's completely ridiculous to think I should just be leaving the castle whenever I please, but if there's any way at all that I could go there, even just for an hour or so - and I completely understand if that's not acceptable-"

"Miss Granger," McGonagall repeated patiently, eyes twinkling behind square-shaped glasses. "You're welcome to use my fireplace."

"I _am_?"

"Be back in the morning, please."

"I - _really_?"

"Yes, and go before I change my mind," added the Headmaster, gesturing toward the fireplace in the back of the office.

"Oh, thank you, Professor, thank you so much, I promise I won't be long-"

And she was still gushing her gratitude as she scooped up a handful of Floo Powder, stopping only to declare her destination and send herself swirling through the acid-green flames.

Hermione didn't stop at the receptionist in the lobby of the hospital, instead proceeding directly to the fourth floor - _Spell Damage_. The mere thought made her stomach churn; this same ward housed the likes of Gilderoy Lockhart and the Longbottoms.

Ron's room, she learned from a Healer who was passing by with a large tray of potions, was a private one at the end of the hall, and she set off for it, beyond desperate to see him.

To her knee-buckling relief, Ron was awake when she burst through the door, propped up against several pillows in his bed, while Harry sat reading a pamphlet on proper cauldron-cleaning technique in a chair next to him. The pair of them had drastically different reactions to Hermione's arrival: Ron's eyes lit up, while Harry looked exasperated at best.

"I told you that everything was fine-" said Harry irritably as Hermione strode toward them.

"And you should have known I wouldn't accept that," replied Hermione curtly before turning her attention to Ron. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Ron nodded, a smile breaking through the exhaustion on his features. "I'm all right, this git's not that good at curses, anyway."

He was awake, he was alive, and he was already poking fun at Harry. He was, as promised, completely back to normal. Hermione ducked down and pressed a gentle kiss on Ron's lips, a long-absent warmth flooding through her at the contact; Harry pretended to be deeply interested in various types of scrub brushes.

"How on earth did you manage to get here?" asked Ron as Hermione perched on the edge of his bed.

"McGonagall let me use her Floo," admitted Hermione. "I might have panicked a bit."

"Which is exactly what I told you not to do," Harry chimed in. "Ron, I'm going to go tell your parents that you're awake now, we'll probably be back in a few hours, all right?"

"Yeah, that's fine."

"And I'm really, really sorry," Harry added, looking sheepish.

"Yeah, well, you oughta be," Ron grinned. "See you later, mate."

The second the door closed, Hermione took the liberty of settling against the pillows next to Ron, her head on his shoulder.

"This doesn't hurt, does it?" she asked, resting a hand lightly on his chest.

"No, not at all, I'm just tired." Ron placed his hand over hers, linking their fingers. "And I love you for it, but you didn't have to come all the way here, I know you've got your classes-"

"I can handle a few absences," Hermione asserted, "what I can't handle is-" She broke off, unable to put her worst fear into words. "I just needed to be here." She felt him exhale, then touch his lips to the top of her head. "I just have to be back by tomorrow morning."

"So I have a whole day with you?" Ron said brightly. "Brilliant, maybe I should get cursed more often."

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	22. I Can't Trust You

A/N: Fun fact, this almost took place at Grimmauld Place. And then halfway through, I was like "how is this _not_ a Shell Cottage fic?" Because again, I will literally never tire of DH missing moments.

* * *

 **I Can't Trust You**

Shell Cottage was beautiful, and tranquil, and best of all, safe - as safe as a house could be these days - but it could barely contain all of its houseguests. Hermione would never be able to adequately express her gratitude to Bill and Fleur for their hospitality, as she was dreading the return to life in a tent, but that didn't change the fact that Luna talked in her sleep, mostly in languages Hermione didn't understand (though once she was positive it was Mermish), and sharing a room with her meant that Hermione lately was not predisposed to much actual sleep. Most nights, it was just as well. Closing her eyes meant she felt a knife against her neck, a curse ripping through her bones, Ron screaming from below, so close and yet dreadfully far.

It was just past one in the morning when Hermione determined that she'd had rather enough of tossing and turning in bed, and tiptoed down to the kitchen. Maybe a glass of ice water would be all she needed to ease the whirring in her brain, the constant rumination over the floor plan of Gringotts, the logistics of impersonating Death Eaters, the sheer absurdity of trying to rob a bank - or maybe not, but a change of scenery couldn't hurt.

When she crept down the stairs, though, there was a light flickering in the doorway. She stepped inside to see Ron at the wooden table with an enormous carton of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans in front of him and a lantern lit in the corner.

"Oh, hey," he greeted her, a soft smile on his face. "Did you want a midnight snack too?"

"No, I couldn't sleep." She crossed the room to fetch a glass from the cupboard, using her wand to fill it up. "And it's well past midnight, you know."

"Yeah, well, it was midnight when I came in here," he replied, gesturing for her to join him at the table.

"You've been sitting here for a whole hour?" asked Hermione as she seated herself across from him.

"I reckoned I could lie in the sitting room and stress out, or come in here and stress out, and at least here there's food, look what I found," he said with a little laugh, gesturing to the candy in front of him. "You want some?"

"No," Hermione answered with amusement, shaking her head. "I don't know how you eat those not knowing if you'll get one that's good or repulsive or-"

"I'm an expert now, though," Ron explained with a mirthful note in his voice. "I can tell what's what now, I'm highly skilled in candy identification."

"Are you?"

"Yeah, here, I'll prove it." He tipped over the carton so that beans poured out over the surface of the table and studied them. "Try this one," he said, using his pointer finger to slide a bright green one over to her. "It's lime."

Briefly, Hermione thought of what her parents would think of eating candy in the middle of the night, but then shoved that notion out of her mind. They were Monica and Wendell now, and they were in Australia, and she was here with Ron to try to accomplish this task that seemed more insurmountable by the day. And if it helped, even a little, to play along with him, she would.

Tentatively she popped the candy into her mouth, instantly grimacing as she bit down.

"That tastes like grass," she sputtered, choking it down and trying to pick the sticky remnants out of her teeth.

Ron merely quirked an eyebrow. "I thought you liked freshly cut grass."

Hermione's stomach flipped: he had remembered. They'd been studying for their Potions final late last year, during those lazy afternoon hours when Harry had been otherwise occupied with Ginny, when Ron had asked Hermione what Amortentia had smelled like to her. "New parchment, freshly cut grass, and - and spearmint toothpaste," she had lied, because there was no way she could tell him that she'd smelled _him_ in the potion. And when she'd turned the question back his way, he had just laughed, said "mostly chocolate", and turned their book to the page on Felix Felicis. But more and more lately - and especially since Malfoy Manor - she suspected that he too had not been entirely truthful.

"To smell, not to eat," Hermione retorted, recovering quickly. "That was disgusting."

"Okay, try this one, this one's coffee," Ron said as he dropped a brown one into her palm.

"Are you sure?"

"Mmm hmm," Ron nodded, the corner of his mouth crooking upward.

Eyeing him warily, Hermione took a small nibble off the end and almost gagged. "I think it's meant to be beef."

"Oh, sorry," he grinned, plainly not apologetic at all, as Hermione's jaw dropped in indignation and she leaned across the table to smack him on the arm.

"You're such a prat," she reprimanded playfully. "You're doing this on purpose, aren't you?"

"Course not." Scanning the mess of candy on the table, he selected a bright red jelly bean and presented it to her on his outstretched palm as though it were on a silver platter. "This one's strawberry. I promise."

"No, no, I'm not eating that," said Hermione, "it's probably something like blood or chili pepper or something, I can't trust you!"

The kitchen fell silent, her haphazard declaration ringing in the air. Ron froze, his mouth half open, and then withdrew his hand.

"Right," he mumbled, averting his eyes to the brightly decorated carton on the table. "Right."

"No, Ron - I didn't mean - I was only joking," she rushed to explain, "because you've given me such bad flavors so far-"

"You can, though," he said quietly in the general direction of his hands. "You know. Trust me. I mean, I understand why you don't, and I wouldn't either, and I don't expect anything to be how it was, but…" Moonlight slanting across his features, Ron fixed his gaze on Hermione. "I am never going to hurt you again."

She reached out one small hand and placed it over his, squeezing lightly. At her touch, his expression softened, some of the tension seeping out of him.

"I know that," she whispered, her heart rate accelerating as he turned over his hand and let their fingers lace together.

"And I'll promise you something else, too," Ron added seriously.

"What's that?"

With his free hand, he pointed to the abandoned red jelly bean. "That will not taste like chili peppers."

"Let's give it a try, then," Hermione said, silently grateful that he'd broken the tension. Still clinging to his hand, she picked up the candy and popped it into her mouth.

"What is it?" asked Ron warily. "Tomatoes? Cinnamon? Blood?"

"No." Despite it all, Hermione smiled at him, her first genuine one in what felt like months. "Strawberry."

Ron laughed. "I made you a promise, I kept it."

* * *

Thank you for reading! Please review :)


	23. Let Me Help You

A/N: I don't usually write them at this point in the story, but my illustrated copy of Prisoner of Azkaban arrived in the mail and I guess it inspired me… enjoy!

* * *

 **Let Me Help You**

The stack of books at the back of the Gryffindor common room was making sniffling noises. Now, normally Ron was unfazed by this sort of thing - he'd been assigned a biting book this year alone, and his dad was always confiscating illegally enchanted ones - but they didn't usually sniffle like that. And they also didn't mumble to themselves like they were reading aloud, or, Ron observed as he took a wary step closer, have a frazzled mane of bushy hair just barely visible over the top. He approached, still tentative, and peeked over a copy of _Muggles of Modern Europe_ to see a scarlet-faced Hermione with inkwells and quills and parchment all around her, flipping frantically through her another book.

Not that he ever really thought it was the books, anyway.

"Erm… Hermione?" Ron attempted quietly, wincing as her head snapped up, her eyes rimmed with red.

Lately, ever since Buckbeak's hearing, she'd had a bit of a short fuse, and he didn't fancy being smacked in the face the way she'd done to Malfoy. Though, he had to admit, it was high on the long list of her finest moments, and he had been playing the memory over and over again in his mind, the fierceness in her eyes, the breathless flush in her cheeks - oh, and the hand-shaped welt on Malfoy's cheek, that was definitely his favorite part. Definitely. Today, though, she just looked downtrodden, defeated, miserable.

"What do you want?" she asked, turning her attention back to the book.

"It's the Easter hols," Ron reminded her. "Don't you want to take a break?"

"I can't take a break, are you mental?!" _Probably_ , thought Ron. "This is my chance to get ahead on everything, I even convinced Professor Flitwick to tell me which essays he's going to set next week so I can start on them now-"

"Okay, you're the mental one," Ron interjected loudly. This was definitely a new level of insanity for Hermione, and she was the one person last year who was upset when exams were cancelled.

"I'm just a bit busy," she said, "and I'm trying to find some new evidence for Buckbeak but there's nothing, I used it all up on the last hearing and-" She swallowed thickly and glanced back down at her book. "And it still wasn't good enough, so - so I just have to do better-"

Ron watched, almost paralyzed by shock, as she swiped quickly at her eyes, blinking furiously to keep tears at bay.

"It's gonna be okay," said Ron quickly, sitting in the chair next to her. "We'll find a way to save Buckbeak, I'm sure of it."

He actually felt nothing of the sort, but as she was on the verge of crying, he needed to do something, anything, to keep her from feeling so hopeless.

"And I've got all these charts to do for Arithmancy," she continued on, now looking down at her book with watery eyes, "and Snape set that project about the practical uses of murtlap essence, plus I have to write a whole roll of parchment for Muggle Studies about how to operate a television and-"

"Okay, I'll help you," Ron blurted out, making Hermione's head pop up. "Let me help you, I mean, I reckon I can do the stuff for Buckbeak, can't I?"

"Oh, no, you don't have to-"

"I want to," he insisted, his eyes landing on _Fowl or Foul: A Study Of Hippogriff Brutality_ in the middle of her towering stack of books and carefully wiggling it free. "I said I'd help you before, and I meant it. And I'm sure Harry'll want to help too," he added hastily.

Hermione let out a relieved breath and cracked a feeble smile. "Thanks, Ron."

Nodding, he opened the book up to the first page and skimmed over the table of contents.

"So how are you doing it, anyway?" asked Ron after a few minutes of comfortable silence. "There's no way you can take all of these classes at once, it's impossible."

"That's none of your business," Hermione said loftily, grabbing a quill to jot something down on her parchment.

"It just doesn't make any sense." Ron turned to chapter three - _When Pride Becomes Perilous_ \- but didn't start to read yet. "You've never missed Divination, but you've also never missed Muggle Studies-"

"McGonagall is letting me drop Divination," she said, "but you're not in Muggle Studies, how would you know, anyway?"

A flush crept up Ron's neck, which he tried to cover by casually hitching his robes up a little higher. It had been a weird few months not talking to Hermione, not least because he knew he was meant to be livid with her - her pet ate his, after all, and she didn't even care - but he found himself thinking about her all the time. She was always working, looking gaunt and burned out, and she'd be in the front row of class one second and gone the next, and he just - he had needed to know. All he'd had to do was chat up Ernie Macmillan in Herbology to find out that Hermione had never missed a class, but looking back, it was a bit… _unusual_ for him to do that, especially when they had been in a fight.

"That's none of your business," Ron quipped back, averting his eyes back to his reading. "Now if you don't mind, I'd like to get back to my work here."

When he was sure she wasn't looking, Ron stole a glance at her, satisfied to see a hint of a smile on her lips.

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	24. Wanna Go Out Sometime?

Warning: Lots of Ron and Harry friendship.

* * *

 **Wanna Go Out Sometime?**

"So I couldn't help but notice," said Harry, tugging a gnome out of the earth by its ankles, "that you're not actually with Hermione right now."

Ron, kneeling in the dirt, sat back on his heels and glared at Harry. "Right, because I'm with you. Degnoming the garden."

"I meant in a more general sense," Harry said. Rising to his feet, he hurled the gnome a good fifty feet out into the orchard. "I figured since what happened-"

"A lot's happened since what happened," Ron reminded him.

In the past five days, he'd watched his own brother die, seen the fall of Lord Voldemort, returned to his childhood home to evict a pajama-clad ghoul from his bedroom, and buried said brother… but he hadn't yet managed to kiss Hermione again, and the longer he waited, the more anxious it made him.

"All the more reason."

"The thing is…" Ron plucked a curious little gnome out of the grass with one large, scarred hand. "I don't really know how to go from, y'know, whatever we are now, to - to a relationship, I mean, do I ask her on a date? What do I even say, 'wanna go out sometime?'" He jokingly rolled his eyes.

"You know you actually have more relationship experience than I do," Harry laughed as he knelt again, "so I don't know why you're asking me."

"That's completely different, just because I've had a girlfriend before doesn't mean I've had a girlfriend that I'm actually-" He paused; finishing with 'that I'm actually in love with' seemed a bit premature to voice aloud, even if just to Harry, and even if he knew it was true. "It's _Hermione_. I can't mess it up."

He stood and lobbed the gnome in his hand over the garden wall, knowing it would be back in minutes.

"You're overthinking it," Harry said. "Don't think about it so much. Like with me and Ginny-"

"Oh, come on, really?"

"No, seriously, listen," Harry continued, "that whole time I was with Cho, whatever that was, I was constantly trying to figure out what to say and what to do and it stressed me out and it was miserable. But with Ginny, I didn't have to do any of that, I kind of just went for it, so…" He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. "So go with your gut, I reckon is what I'm saying."

It wasn't the worst advice in the world, but it was a lot easier said than done. Every time Ron saw Hermione lately, his stomach flipped and his mind became this horrible jumble and even though all he had wanted to do for the past three years was kiss her, there was some sort of disconnect between his heart and his ability to actually act on its desires.

And Ron had never exactly been a wordsmith, so how was he supposed to convey the magnitude of it all? That she was everything to him, that she always had been, that when he thought of the future, she was all he saw? He would either make a fool of himself or she'd think he had gone mad, and he didn't fancy either option.

"Just because you died and came back to life doesn't make you wise, you know," Ron snapped, half-joking.

"Fine, have it your way. Wait another seven years, see if I care."

"And you obviously _do_ care, or you wouldn't-"

Ron stopped, his breath catching in his throat. Hermione was crossing the garden in bare feet, her ponytail swinging as she levitated a large pitcher of ice water and two glasses alongside her.

"Hi," she said, her eyes only on Ron, borrowed wand held aloft. "I thought you might be thirsty, it's so hot out today."

"Thanks," said Harry gratefully, rising to his feet and brushing off his dirty knees.

Hermione, with highlights reflecting off of her hair and freckles on her shoulders, was impossible to look away from, and Ron felt his throat go dry. Why was he so nervous around his best friend? They had already kissed once, for Merlin's sake, and she had been the one to initiate that, so surely she didn't find him completely unappealing…

 _Don't think. Just do._

In just two long strides, Ron stood before her, dipping his face down so it was mere millimeters from hers. He had said it was now or never back during the battle at Hogwarts, but that was even more true now. The longer he waited, the closer he came to that kiss being written off as a fluke, as a we-might-die-tonight impulse, and he couldn't live with that.

So he kissed her, soft and slow, even though Harry was laughing in the background, even though his mum was probably watching from the kitchen window, even though the floating pitcher and glasses came crashing down to the grass. Hermione stood on her toes to bring herself closer, her free hand grabbing his seemingly on impulse. This… this felt like a shift between them, a change, the obvious next step, and Ron found himself grinning like an idiot when she pulled away to take a breath.

"Well," Harry chuckled, "that's one approach."

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	25. I'm Not Wearing That

A/N: I had the idea in my head of Ron doing this for months... and also there's no such thing as too many missing moments, right?

* * *

 **I'm Not Wearing That**

The problem with having exactly four Sickles to his name was that Ron always felt that he fell short whenever his friends' birthdays would come along. Usually Harry's was okay, because during the summer he could send an owl laden down with his mum's finest baked goods to compensate for whatever it was the Dursleys made him subsist on, but Hermione was a different story. September was always a tough month for his family, thanks to the mass expenditure on school supplies, so he felt guilty asking for anything more from them. Besides, the time he had splashed out on a gift for her (borrowing the funds from Fred and George in exchange for deep-cleaning their room, which had been a harrowing experience), she'd simply called the perfume unusual and he didn't think she'd ever worn it, so it had been a bit of a bust.

There were always the old Hermione stand-bys: books, fancy quills, unspillable ink, but those things all felt dreadfully generic to him. They were the sort of thing someone who only knew the bare minimum about Hermione would get her, and he knew she deserved more than that. The only problem was that four Sickles was barely enough to purchase a tin of fudge from Honeyduke's, much less anything that Hermione might actually want…

So what did she actually want? She wasn't the sort to get caught up in material items; he had never seen her wear jewelry or lose her head over new clothes the way some of the girls in their year did. Even if he could come up with an idea for some sort of Muggle contraption that she would like, it was the eighteenth of September already. He had been wracking his brains for weeks now and had come up empty time and time again, because Hermione just wasn't the sort of person who wanted stuff. She wanted Voldemort dead and gone, she wanted Ron and Harry to actually buckle down and do their homework, she wanted freedom for all house elves-

Ron sat up straight in his bed, a smile stretching wide over his face (it was just lucky that Harry and the others were already asleep). In one fleeting moment of brilliance, he knew exactly how to make Hermione's seventeenth birthday special.

In the morning, he woke before everyone else and began searching through the detritus in his trunk. It had to be here somewhere, he never would have thrown it away, but he had accumulated an astonishing amount of Chocolate Frog wrappers and scrap bits of parchment over the years, so it took some digging before he found it buried underneath a package of Owl Treats. Carefully, like it might break, Ron cradled the thing in his hands. It was a little dusty, a little dingy - he hadn't touched it in two years - but it would certainly suffice.

He was the first person in the common room that morning, anxiously watching the girls' staircase for a sign of her. Usually she was already waiting for him and Harry in the mornings so they could all go to breakfast today, but today he wanted to be the one waiting for her. Just after seven, she descended the stairs, her rucksack nearly bursting with textbooks, and paused on the bottom step when she saw him.

"Happy birthday," he said brightly, standing up from the armchair by the fire. He almost reached his arms out to hug her - that was the sort of thing friends did, wasn't it, give each other birthday hugs? - but held himself back.

"Thanks," she smiled. "Wow, you're never up this early, why are you-" She cut herself off, eyes narrowing. "What are you wearing?"

"What?" he asked, playing innocent.

"This." She jabbed a finger into the badge on his chest.

"Oh, that?" He shrugged, using every ounce of willpower he possessed to keep from smiling. "I'm just supporting the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare."

Her expression drifted from shock to confusion to amusement. "I didn't think that you even kept that-"

"Of course I kept it," said Ron. "You'd've hexed me if I didn't, but anyway, it's important to you, so, yeah, I kept it."

"And whatever happened to Mr. I'm-Not-Wearing-That?" she asked, echoing words from their fourth year.

He had been so pigheaded back then, so hellbent on telling her that she was wrong, that she was barking mad for messing with the elves - and he still thought it was a little bit mental at times - but he'd been in denial about a lot of Hermione-related things that year. Things he'd slowly come to terms with over the past two years, things that weren't about house elves at all but about the fact that he couldn't stop thinking about her, that when she kissed him on the cheek last year he had felt it on his skin for weeks, that all he wanted was to be closer to her, always closer. He just wasn't the same stubborn fourteen-year-old anymore.

"Like I said, it's important to you." He gestured back to the badge. "So, happy birthday. I wanted to get you something better, but - well - this is all I could really afford-"

As his face blushed red, she stood on her toes and hugged him, and his throat went dry. Out of instinct he looped his arms around her waist, holding her torso to his and wishing he could freeze time because he'd done it, he had actually made her happy and it hadn't taken stacks of Galleons to do it. All of those things that he never let himself wish for, maybe they weren't as out of reach as he thought.

"It's perfect," she said, releasing him as Ron reluctantly took his hands back from her waist. "Ooh!" Her eyes lit up, face shining. "Since you're up so early, maybe we have time to teach you how to knit - we could start making hats again, those are the easiest…"

On the outside, Ron groaned (he hadn't quite bargained for _this_ ), but internally, he knew he'd do whatever she asked.

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	26. Can You Shut Up?

Warning: Shell Cottage. And I'm not even sorry.

* * *

 **Can You Shut Up?**

Every muscle in Hermione's body ached, still, and though Fleur had said it could take weeks for her to fully recover, it was still frustrating. She was exhausted, constantly, and yet every time she laid down to rest, she was assaulted with memories of a cold marble floor, a knife slicing her skin, Ron screaming her name… and sleep just wouldn't come. Even on the nights when Ron dozed in a small wooden chair at her bedside, his long limbs crammed into the rickety furniture - his own way of showing her that he was never leaving her again - she still couldn't manage more than an hour or two each night.

"There's got to be a way, right, that we can still use the sword?" Harry was saying during another one of their clandestine meetings. On the floor sat a crudely-drawn map of Gringotts between the three of them, the occasional note scribbled on the parchment. "What if we just destroy the Horcrux on the spot, the second we find it?"

Hermione leaned back against the wall next to Ron and then, on second thought, tilted toward him so that their shoulders touched. He looked down at her, his eyes asking a silent question, and Hermione nodded just slightly. He always wanted to make sure she was okay, that she wasn't in pain, but he already worried about her so much already. She didn't want to let on that her eyelids felt like there were little weights on the ends of them, dragging them down.

And yet something, maybe the warmth in his gaze, maybe the fact that Harry was distracted by poring over their map, compelled her to rest her head on his shoulder. Lately - and maybe she was just exhausted from being inside her own head all the time - it had become more and more difficult to hold herself back from him. As their plan to retrieve whichever Horcrux resided in the Lestrange vault developed, and as such revealed itself to essentially be a suicide mission, it just seemed silly not to give in to these moments between them.

And anyway, Harry likely wouldn't have noticed if they'd begun openly snogging right in front of him, so there was really no harm in innocently cozying up next to Ron…

So as Harry prattled on about logistics, and what the Horcrux may or may not do when they attempt to destroy it ("the ring was cursed, we can't forget about things like that"), she gave in to her leaden eyelids. Ron's hand briefly patted hers and gave it a soft squeeze before releasing it, and Hermione felt herself relax. Ron was here. She could sense his body heat, smell his hair, feel the vibration of his voice as he spoke to Harry, and he wasn't going anywhere. Since Christmas, he had proven that a thousand times over.

"I suppose we probably can't destroy the Horcrux while we're still in the vault," Harry mused, seemingly to himself, "not if we're trying to get in and out unnoticed - though if we don't give it a chance to fight back-"

"Harry," Ron hissed suddenly, "can you shut up?"

"What?"

Hermione felt Ron's body tense up, but she kept her eyes closed, her breathing steady.

"I'm sorry," Ron continued, his voice low. "I know this is important, and I want this to work as much as you do - but it's just…" His chest rose and fell as he let out a sigh. "Hermione doesn't sleep. I know because - because I don't really either, I just pretend while she tosses and turns or has nightmares and - and there's not a lot I can do, okay, so if she's sleeping now… just let her, please."

There was silence, and Hermione allowed herself a split-second to open her eyes, during which time she saw the expression on Harry's face soften.

"You both should sleep," said Harry finally. "I need the pair of you to be okay."

"Don't fancy impersonating a Death Eater?"

A pause, and then Harry's voice. "You know that's not how I meant it."

"Yeah, I know."

"I'll leave you to it, then," said Harry, "and we can talk about all of this tomorrow."

The soft click of the doorknob told Hermione that they were alone, and she picked up her head.

"Did he wake you up?" Ron asked immediately, annoyance in his tone. "I tried to tell him-"

"I wasn't sleeping," said Hermione quietly.

"Oh." Ron's ears turned pink. "Well - did you want to try to sleep? Because I can go."

"I do," she nodded. "But you can stay." They must have had matching blushes on their faces, Hermione thought as she spoke her next words. "I want you to stay."

As she clambered onto the bed, Ron situated himself in his usual chair, shifting around in a poorly-disguised attempt to make himself comfortable.

"Ron," said Hermione, sitting up against the headboard and patting the narrow stretch of duvet next to her thighs. "You can sleep here if you want."

"Er - really?"

Hermione calmly met his gaze, trying to act like sleeping beside each other for the first time was of no significance, but this was far more than an accidental nap on the Gryffindor common room sofa. This was the two of them purposefully choosing to share a bed, and a rather small one at that… but she knew what she wanted.

"Yes," she said. "I expect I'll sleep better with you next to me. Really next to me."

"Say no more," replied Ron, vacating his chair and joining her on the mattress.

Hermione shifted around until her head rested on the pillow, turning onto her left side so that her back was aimed at Ron. He followed suit, his hand trembling as he moved to drape an arm loosely around her waist. Despite the adrenaline coursing through her veins at the contact, Hermione also felt a sense of deep calm come over her, as though somewhere, deep in her core, she knew this was exactly where she needed to be.

"Well," Ron said, sounding breathless, "I'm really glad I told Harry off now."

"So am I," Hermione responded, letting her eyes fall shut again.

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	27. You Think You're Funny?

Warning: Some mildly suggestive dialogue.

* * *

 **You Think You're Funny?**

Hermione's options for holiday shopping at Hogwarts were, admittedly, limited - if she couldn't purchase it by owl-order, she really couldn't purchase it at all - but she felt confident in her gift for Ron all the same. Though the pressure was on, as it was their first holiday together as a couple, the past several months together had given her plenty of ideas, and a quick perusal of Ginny's copy of _Quidditch Quarterly_ had sealed the deal. Now, with Christmas Eve festivities at the Burrow successfully concluded, she found that she could not stand to lie on the camp bed in Ginny's room another minute.

Catlike, Hermione crept out of the room and up the winding staircase to the attic bedroom, a trip she had perfected over the past summer. Carefully, she turned the doorknob and was met with the sound of both Ron and Harry snoring noisily in their beds. Hermione made a beeline for Harry's camp bed, which only raised him about a foot off the floor.

"Harry," she whispered, prodding him in the shoulder with her foot. "Get out."

Harry stirred, blinking up at her in bleary confusion. "Huh?"

"Get out," Hermione repeated impatiently. "Go to Ginny's room or something, just go away."

With an air of being severely inconvenienced, Harry hauled himself up from the bed and plodded toward the door. As he soundlessly exited the room, Hermione perched on the edge of Ron's bed with a small wrapped box held behind her back. Her weight on the narrow mattress jostled him, causing his eyes to flicker open. Ron sat up, copper hair in disarray, the corner of his mouth tilting upward at the sight of her.

"What're you doing in here?" he asked, leaning in to touch his lips to hers and casually igniting the lantern on his nightstand. "Not that I'm complaining."

"I wanted to give you the first part of your gift now," Hermione replied. "I've decided it can't wait until morning."

Ron made a small show of checking the time on his watch. "Okay," he nodded, a small smirk crossing his features. "It's after midnight, I'll allow it."

Hermione placed the box on his lap, her lower lip between her teeth in nervous anticipation as he peeled away the wrapping paper. It was their first real Christmas together, and it was meant to be special, and she thought she knew Ron well enough to know how he would react, but if she ruined the holiday before it had even properly begun-

"These are brilliant," Ron chuckled, extracting from the box a pair of bright orange boxers emblazoned with black interlocking C's. "You think you're funny, don't you?"

Unperturbed - she had anticipated this - Hermione met his perplexed yet happy grin with a smirk of her own. "You do love the Cannons," she remarked, gesturing to the many Quidditch posters adorning his walls.

"Yeah, I do-" and he tilted forward to kiss her again, but she dodged him.

"And it might interest you to know," she continued on confidently, "that I happen to have a matching set. For myself."

The grin fell from Ron's face, replaced by an expression of great intrigue. "You have? Really?"

"It's the other part of your gift."

He mouthed wordlessly for a second, unable to find his voice. "So…" He cleared his throat and swallowed thickly. "So when do I get to, erm, y'know, unwrap that part?"

"I sent Harry away," said Hermione as a blush crept into her cheeks, "so right now if you want."

Ron pounced on her, tackling her to the bed, his laughter resonating in her ears.

"Still think it's funny?" Hermione teased him, prompting a hurried shake of the head.

"Not at all." He pulled away just long enough to kiss her square on the lips. "Best Christmas ever."

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	28. You Look Really Tired

A/N: Deathly Hallows angsty missing moment... because I simply cannot and will not get over it.

* * *

 **You Look Really Tired**

Heavy. That's what the locket was, a constant burden, even in the times when Hermione would lift it from around her neck and pass it dutifully to Harry. The weight of it never truly left her: she was always thinking about it, trying to work out a way to destroy it that didn't involve wiping out the entire south coast of England with Fiendfyre and dreading Ron's twelve-hour shift, which unfailingly transformed him into a subdued, angry mess. But it wasn't as if any of them had a choice, so when her turn came, she dropped the chain around her neck and let the icy metal press into her skin. That was the other thing: the locket never let you forget about it and you could never acclimate to it. It was always there, forcing itself to the forefront of everyone's minds, a constant reminder that they somehow had to achieve the impossible.

No one had spoken for hours. Just beyond the flaps of the tent - and he was letting a ton of cold air in, Hermione thought resentfully - Harry sat on watch, twirling his wand between his fingers. Ron had taken up residence on one of the bunk beds, his arm still in a sling. Perched precariously on a pillow beside him was a cup of tea, which he idly stirred with his free hand. His red hair, now long and shaggy from weeks on the run, fell into his eyes, and his lower lip seemed permanently lodged between his teeth.

How had they gotten here? How had they gone from dancing at Bill's wedding and holding hands as they fell asleep, to this miserable, reverberating silence? How could she look at him, the person who had held her as she cried at Dumbledore's funeral, who had offered to teach her his family tree, and not even know what to say?

 _Maybe_ , a cool voice whispered in her ear, _maybe none of those things were real_. Maybe this was just what happened when everything else was stripped away and they were truly alone with each other, left with the bare bones of their friendship. Maybe this was all they ever really had.

Ron shifted slightly on the bunk, wincing as he tried to find a comfortable position for his Splinched shoulder, and Hermione, pushing the cool voice to the back of her mind, suddenly recalled that she hadn't changed the bandages on his wounds for at least a day. _And if you don't do it_ , the cool voice piped up, _nobody else will_.

Wordlessly - her voice seemed to be momentarily lodged in her throat - Hermione soaked a tea towel with warm water and picked up the first aid kit. Ron's eyes flicked up to her as she approached and seated herself on the bed next to him. Used to the routine by now, he shook off the sling and unzipped his jumper, revealing a mess of bandages caked with dried blood on his shoulder. Gooseflesh popped up along his creamy, freckled skin as she gently pulled the dressings from his wound; he hadn't bothered to wear a vest underneath his jumper.

"Sorry, I know it's cold in here," Hermione found herself saying, even though it wasn't as if she could control the weather… _or much of anything anymore, really._

"M'not cold," Ron muttered back, the tips of his ears turning pink.

Rather than let herself speculate on what that might have meant, Hermione forced herself to focus on the task at hand, forced herself not to look at the ridges of his ribs, the sprinkling of copper hair around his belly button - she could not. Not here. Not now.

And probably not for a very long time.

She touched the cloth lightly to his shoulder, wiping away the dried blood - even now, there was still so much blood. _And it's your fault_ , the voice piped up. She had been the one doing all of the Apparating, she had been the one dragging the boys along with her, and she just hadn't done it well enough. This bloody, torn-up disaster of a shoulder that she barely knew how to heal, it was all her doing. She'd failed him.

Unbidden, tears popped up in her eyes as she dabbed at his skin. The enormity of the task before them, their utter isolation from everyone else they cared about, the quietly emerging truth that Harry knew just as much, or as little, as they did, it all seemed to press upon her at once.

"Are you all right?" Ron asked, his voice low, hoarse. Their faces were just inches apart, and she swallowed, forcing back this swell of emotion.

"Fine."

Hermione watched as something flickered in his eyes - affection, concern… pity? _Probably pity_ , said the cool voice in her head.

"You look really tired," he added softly as she picked up another tea towel to dry off his skin.

"Thanks," she spat, narrowing her eyes as she patted away drops of water and picked up a square of gauze.

"I don't mean it like that," Ron replied, briefly matching her glare. "I'm just saying, you ought to take a nap or something."

"I'm fine," she repeated, hastily taping the gauze into place. Wearing the locket while asleep was a recipe for nightmares, anyway. "Just let me do this."

Her hands trembled as she tore off another strip of tape; the locket had a way of casting a chill over her that permeated her entire body.

"Right," Ron said suddenly. "Give me the locket."

He took the last bit of tape from her and placed it sloppily on the bandage, and then held out an expectant hand, palm facing up. Hermione bristled at this: did he think she couldn't handle it?

"Ron, it's my turn-"

"I'll take your turn for you," he declared, grimacing as he slid his arm back into his jumper. "Or-" He lowered his voice conspiratorially. "As Harry's not here, how about no one wears it?"

"We can't-"

"Just for a bit." Without waiting for a response, he drew the chain up over her head, letting the necklace coil in his palm. "Better, innit?"

And of course it was: a pit in her stomach was slowly dissolving, and the air around them became easier to breathe. Hermione let her eyes rove over him; he still hadn't zipped his jumper.

"Just for a couple of hours," she stated firmly. "And then I'll take it back."

The corner of his mouth tipped upward in a smile so familiar, so endearing, it made her stomach flip. "All right. Whatever you say, just as long as you take a break."

Ron stood, zipping his jumper with a nervous little laugh, and pulled Hermione to her feet. "Look, nothing - nothing's going to change today," he said carefully, disappointment crossing his face. "So just get some rest. Please?"

It was no use arguing, so Hermione climbed up to the top bunk, burying herself under the blankets and allowing her eyes to close. As Ron walked by, his hand brushed down her forearm, lightly squeezing her hand, and then his footsteps faded away.

No, it wasn't the same as dancing at his brother's wedding, but it was still something.

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	29. Please Talk To Me

A/N: I don't know what happened here. I wrote most of it at 3 am in a hospital waiting room so yeah, this is really angsty. But I hope you like it!

* * *

 **Please Talk To Me**

The weather had shifted now, officially, and the nights were no longer warm and balmy like they had been over the summer. A permanent chill had crept into the air over the past few weeks, so gradually that at first Hermione hadn't noticed. But now, with the mouth of the tent suddenly unwilling to properly zip shut, it had her shivering in her bunk, several layers of jumpers inadequate to shield her from it, awakening her to a silent tent.

Silent, save for the garbled snoring of one Harry Potter. Since the three of them had left the Burrow, Hermione had quickly learned to distinguish Harry's breathing from Ron's, as one, inexplicably (or, not so inexplicably, if she was honest with herself) brought her far more comfort than the other - and that one was absent. As she slid soundlessly out of her bunk, she could see Ron just outside the canvas flaps, his narrow frame silhouetted in moonlight, and something inside her cracked. Harry was sleeping - really sleeping, not on a sojourn into Tom Riddle's mind - and this might be her only chance. On heavily socked feet, she padded across the dingy carpet, bracing herself for the gust of wind she knew would come.

Ron sat stoically on the leaf-covered ground, his forearms resting on his knees, one hand idly twirling his wand between his fingers. His eyes flitted briefly over to her as she sat down beside him, and then fixed back upon the pile of dead leaves at his feet.

And she tried not to take it personally, because he'd been wearing the locket for what had to have been hours now, and she was awfully familiar with what it did to him. And there were times, when he'd been free of it, that she had seen glimmers of the old Ron, brief flashes of the person he used to be, and the way he made her feel, before they had all taken up permanent residence with a slice of an evil soul. Ron was in there somewhere, she knew he was, he was just hidden, trapped under the weight of it.

"Hi," she attempted feebly, her nervous voice seeming to echo through the forest. Ron gave a nod of acknowledgement. "How's watch duty going?"

"S'fine," he muttered, eyes still cast downward.

"Anything exciting happen?"

She had expected some sort of sarcastic remark, a quip about fighting off ladybugs and sparrows - but instead, all she got was a halfhearted shrug.

"Are you okay?"

Another shrug, and the thing inside her that had cracked broke completely.

"Ron…" She watched him, letting the words bubble up in her throat. "Please talk to me."

A gust of wind rustled the pines around them, almost drowning out his deadened words. "About what?"

"Anything!" Hermione blurted out, rendered desperate by the sound of his voice. "I miss you."

"I'm right here," he replied, confused. "You can't possibly-"

"But I do. I miss how things used to be, and - and I miss talking to you."

Some days, when it was cold and the locket was taking its toll on Ron and the quest to destroy the Horcruxes seemed impossibly bleak, she missed her old life at Hogwarts so much that she physically felt its absence, hollow and cold in the center of her chest. She hadn't known how much she would treasure those last few weeks of sixth year, moments when she had Ron to herself because Harry was otherwise occupied with Ginny, those late nights in the common room, playing chess (he always won, and she didn't even mind) and bickering back and forth. She didn't regret coming on this journey with Harry; she just wished she had known what she had when she had it.

"I just…" Ron cleared his throat. "I don't have much to say, these days."

Another sharp blast of cool wind washed over them, and Hermione shivered, subconsciously inching closer to Ron. He had picked up a small twig and was digging it into the damp earth, gouging out an uneven hole.

"You don't have to sit here with me," he added, watching her pull the sleeves of her jumper down over her shaking fingers. "You can go back in with Harry."

"I'm fine here," said Hermione, a bit pointedly.

"I can handle a night watch-"

"I know."

"Okay, you know what it is?" he piped up suddenly, his voice louder than it had been in days. "This whole time - all summer, and everything - I thought Harry had this figured out. You know, Dumbledore always told him things bit by bit and I reckoned, I dunno, that he was doing the same thing with us - only telling us when we needed to know - but I don't think so anymore."

Hermione's front teeth dug sharply into her lower lip as she selected her next words. She didn't want to discourage Ron any further - and maybe this was just the locket talking and he didn't really mean any of it - but she didn't disagree. She'd been waiting for a revelation for months, ever since she had learned what a Horcrux was, but it had never come.

"I know," she relented finally. "I hoped we would have learned more by now too."

"And I'm so scared," he added, finally looking up at her, his eyes blue and huge, glowing in the darkness like an owl's would. "Not for myself, I don't care about myself, but what about my family, what about _Ginny_? She's at Hogwarts, she's with _Snape_ of all people, and Merlin only knows how long that ghoul-with-spattergroit ruse is going to hold out, it's a miracle it worked at all - and they're already being tracked by the Ministry, it's only a matter of time-" He broke off suddenly, swallowing thickly. "Sorry, I know you don't want to hear about all of this-"

"Yes, I do!" It was the most conversation they had shared in days. "I really, really do. And I'm scared for them too, but - we've already got a job to do here, Ron."

"Yeah. I know." His voice had become low, clipped, and he began digging out that hole in the dirt again. "Look, go inside, get warm, there's no use in both of us getting ill from this. You're not even wearing shoes," he added with a touch of amusement.

Hermione let out a breath around chattering teeth. "You're sure?"

"Yeah, really. Go on."

"And you're sure you're okay?" she asked, hoping he picked up on the subtext of her question: that she'd stay if he wasn't.

"Yeah," he said in resignation. "I'll be here."

* * *

 _Thanks for reading! Please review :)_


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